In 2017, I found myself as a freshman in college, rooming with three other strangers in a dorm where I knew nobody, on a campus where I knew no one. Even though I was surrounded by thousands of students my age, with whom I should have easily been able to connect, my freshman year of college was the loneliest I had ever been. I felt like everyone around me was making friends faster than me, and from social media, I perceived that my friends from back home were making friends at their universities and having a much easier time socially than I was.
This blog series features different writers responding to the prompt, “How is the rising generation of college students changing residence life practice?”
Now as someone who works in higher education, I can easily recognize that my lonely first year of college was not a unique experience. However, 2017 was nearly 10 years ago. Now, in 2026, social media is even more prevalent, young adults struggle more with forming personal connections post-COVID, and students are feeling lonelier than ever.
Residence Life professionals know that one of the main concerns we have about our current generation of students is their mental well-being and their sense of belonging. Many students don’t feel at home right away, don’t instantly click with their roommates, and just like me in 2017, struggle to make a friends. But what can we do about this?
I know that in my role as a Hall Director, I have watched Resident Advisors put lots of time and effort into floor meetings and programs to help residents to connect with each other, just for a few, or maybe even no residents to show up. In that same breath, I meet with students in the hall struggling to meet anyone, and wonder what the disconnect is. When I ask the lonely students why they don’t go to any of the hall’s programs, they tell me that nobody shows up… which isn’t wrong, but also, how do we as Residence Life professionals navigate this issue?
I believe the issue is that the current generation of students we serve simply cannot just be “invited” to be a part of the community, but needs to actively feel like they are a wanted member of a community. What I mean by this is that a flier, a newsletter, or even a social media post are not enough to make students feel like a program, event, or resource is for them. Students get inundated with fliers, emails, advertisements all day long, and another form of marketing content about a residence hall program is not going to stand out to them or make them feel like they belong. Rather, we need to change our practices to accommodate these students’ needs and treat our students with personalized care.
In the beginning of the school year, I worked with the Resident Advisors I supervise to train and implement ideas about how we could get students to really feel pride in their community, and to start forming more connections with one another. I worked with the RAs (and admittedly made them practice and rehearse) giving residents their key when they moved in. Our first round of rehearsal was rough… maybe even a little cold, but with some pointers, the team vastly improved! I told the RAs to say “Hi! Welcome to our Community! We are so happy you are here!” as students approached the check-in table. As RAs looked for a resident’s key, another RA made it a point to ask where the resident was moving in from, what floor they were going to live on, and if they knew how to get to that floor. After the resident received their key, the RAs at the check-in table personally handed each resident a mini flyer of the welcome events and told the resident that they would be really happy to see them if they attended the event that night. This may all seem intuitive to some people, but I found it was very important to train RAs on and had an amazing impact on our community and program attendance throughout the year.
Because of the RA team making their first interactions with residents personalized, very inviting, and genuine, our welcome programs had amazing attendance. I also worked with the RAs on how to host a program. Again, this may seem obvious to some people, but I worked with RAs on what to say when welcoming residents into a space, coached them on staying off of their phones and laptops during a program, and gave them a few conversation starters to use when connecting with their residents. The RAs used these social skills at their welcome programs, residents had a really great time, and our program attendance has been positively impacted throughout the year. This is because when residents first set foot in their new homes, they didn’t feel advertised to, but rather felt like they made a human connection and met someone who could be a familiar face.
As residence life professionals, it’s important to recognize that we can’t do everything that our students need to feel less lonely and mentally well. However, the rising generation of college students deserves everything residence life professionals can do to make them feel like they belong in their new home. This not only starts by making a strong first impression with students to set the tone for the year, but also means training RAs on social connection skills, and inviting students to be a part of the community, not through fliers and email templates, but rather genuine connections.
Carley Eichhorn (she/her) is currently a Hall Director at the University of Michigan. In 2021, she graduated from Central Michigan University with undergraduate experience as an RA and a tour guide. In 2022, she graduated with her master’s degree from Oklahoma State University, where she served in the Residential Life department as an Assistant Residential Community Educator and a Social Media and Communications Intern. With two degrees in Communications, Carley loves to write and chit-chat, but also has a passion for reading, hiking, playing water polo, and taking naps with her cat, Obi.
