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Throughout freshman year, I was constantly reminded that friend groups will change as you meet new people. Common mantras told me joining clubs introduces me to peers I may have never met, and my next best friend might be sitting next to me in my required writing class.

But, after freshman year, when your feet are grounded and you’ve supposedly found your place, the noise regarding meeting people goes quiet.

In my freshman year dorm, the halls echoed this trend. After initial move-in day excitement, doors remained closed and social small talk turned into occasional nods and silent elevator rides.

I found a safe haven in my building by moving between my room, my friend’s room a few doors down and another one down a flight of stairs.

But stepping into my sophomore year dorm this fall, I knew I didn’t want to repeat that cycle. My circle of friends is always growing, and the people who live around me should feel welcome in that evolution.

When I approached my roommates and friends with this idea, I was met with significant opposition. There was a continuous fear that once people get to sophomore year they aren’t looking for more friends and that — between clubs, freshman year cliques and Greek life — their social circles have become fixed.

I decided to push back on that narrative, and if no one wanted to expand their social circle to include four extra college girls, then their loss. At that moment, my “dormwarming” was born.

On the first day of classes, I settled into Bird Library, awaiting my afternoon class. I logged onto my computer, opened my Canva account and got to work on invitations.

In big letters at the top, they read “You’re invited to our room’s dormwarming, get excited, it’s going to be epic.” Then, just in case receivers didn’t fully grasp the excitement they should be feeling as they read the invite, I added “we will provide good vibes” at the bottom. Completed with the signature, “with much love,” the invitations were finished. I used up half of my allotted printer money for the semester to print them in color.

I waited for the perfect opportunity and held my fist up to each door in my hall.

At some, concerned faces and mumbles closed the door back in my face. But equally as many faces lit up as I shared my idea and they assured me they wouldn’t miss it.

Finally, the day of my “dormwarming” was here. While my roommates and I prepped our common space with the perfect amount of seating and ulterior lighting, we discussed the possibility of no one showing up. Just as we convinced ourselves that we would be fine with it, we heard a knock on the door.

Welcoming them into our room, we were met with another knock, then another and another. We stood around and introduced ourselves to each other, trying our hardest to remember the names of the 25 visitors who stood in our dorm, and we all bonded over living in similar buildings last year and having different room layouts.

As we toured the halls and I shared my excitement with the success of the event, many of our visitors made remarks about how they wanted to host something similar but had the same doubts of students no longer looking to expand social circles after freshman year. But standing there all together, I felt we defied that thought in one single night.

The event ended up going even longer than we expected it to. New events were born, including “The Summer I Turned Pretty” and gameday watchparties.

Now, we are met with friends knocking on our door on Saturdays, asking us to join them for the game, exchanging laughs and stories that otherwise never would’ve been shared. Greetings in the hallways are frequent, and we already have hall-wide apple picking marked on our calendars for the fall.

So, to all the newly sophomore students who share the same mindset that the people in my hall once did two weeks ago, I say this: knock on their door, introduce yourself in the halls and invite them over. Odds are their social circle is also waiting to expand. There just needs to be some initiation.

Ally Price is a sophomore political science major. Her column appears biweekly. She can be reached at aprice09@syr.edu

Published on September 9, 2025 at 8:01 pm