One thing I'd add to the advice given already is to get out and socialize sooner rather than later in your degree. When you are a freshman, everyone is in the same boat as you, trying to piece together a new group of friends. It can seem daunting, but know that you're not in it alone!
After freshman year, you'll still certainly be able to make plenty of friends, but I found that first year to be especially primed for socialization.
As others have mentioned - ask people to hang out outside if class. Get to the clubs you are interested in, even if they aren't full of other CS majors. Look for events sponsored by the school, like concerts or dances or sports games, and try to find folks who are interested in a good time there.
Best of luck to you!
P.s. - where are you going to school? If you feel comfortable sharing, you could potentially get some advice on campus specific activities (if there are any alumni around).
>...When you are a freshman, everyone is in the same boat as you, trying to piece together a new group of friends.
My experience too. It may seem that everyone else is somehow already plugged-in, but it's just an appearance. Making some acquaintances is a first step to potential friends.
I would not be relying heavily on the need to share something in common - free time and attention is already common enough. All it takes to "socialize" is to ask anyone from your fellow cohort about what they're doing tonight a few times then ask to come along, if not already being invited to join. Turns out boring or not your thing, well, at least now you've got a "shared" experience and a reason to reciprocate and invite someone to do things your way.
Another idea is to join some hiking (or similar outdoors) group. This gives you an extended time in a group, so naturally some conversations open the avenues to do things together beyond hiking. Also, it helps to hook up with some folks from the next college year, kinda piggy back into their circles.
Finally, just do your thing in the spririt of "Build it and they'll come!". After all it's your time, make it fun for yourself to live through it.
I'm in a similar situation, I started studying during covid prime time and I'm now in my third semester with absolutely 0 friends/no support group.
Up to now, I've never had any events in person. Some classes are in person again since 3 weeks ago, but everyone immediately runs away after we're dismissed. I'm starting to lose hope at this point.
That's part of it, I'm a sophomore and didn't meet anybody last year on zoom. Seems like everybody already got their social group though. I'm at Texas A&M, so if there are any former students around who got ideas lmk.
Gig ‘Em! I found my social circle reset pretty hard after freshman year and I was kind of starting over as a sophomore, so not the same situation but some similarity. I’m not going to lie, Sophomore year was hard, but it got better and I loved the rest of college.
One thing that made a huge difference for me was getting a job on-campus. In my case I worked at the Battalion, it was awesome. Although it was also a lot bigger back then.
Student jobs are great because regardless of the job itself, everyone else is, well, a student! Unlike class, you almost certainly have a lot of time to chitchat and kill time on any job, so it’s easier to make friends. Another bonus: chances are the people you work with are in all different majors, and as you make some friends who aren’t in your classes then it helps branch out and give you more sources of potential friends. The people who cross over between disciplines tend to be interesting.
Other things I did include intramurals, volunteering at summer camps, and getting an all-sports pass and constantly asking people if they wanted to go to a (soccer/volleyball/tennis/basketball) whatever sport was happening and not football. Everyone already has plans for the football game, but the minor sports are way easier to go watch, less time commitment, and tons of people have all sports passes but nobody to go to tennis matches with, so they are wasted. I made several casual friends by just asking people “you ever been to an Aggie Soccer match? It’s fun!”
If you’re picking up on a theme here, it’s that you should try to spend as much time in meat space as possible. I was really never comfortable doing stuff like just going to the bar by myself, and having structured activities/excuses why I was going to be somewhere helped me a lot. Most of the friendships I made were casual, but I think that’s normal, and a few became close friends who still keep in touch 15 years later.
Hang in there! Lots of people have lonely seasons in life, it’s normal, and it’ll get better :)
I'd imagine you aren't the only person who may be having a hard time adjusting from a remote freshman year to an in person sophomore year! Outlook is a big part of these things, and sometimes optimism is a great tool even when it seems unwarranted.
I'm a cali guy, so I can't comment on Texas A&M from experience, but... is there a computer lab available for working on your CS assignment? At my school our lab was lovingly referred to as "the dungeon". It was a place where you would spend long hours working with others on hard problems. As others have mentioned, shared hardship goes a long way towards friendship, and I am still close with some of those I met and worked with there!
Fellow Aggie here! I graduated with a CS degree nearly 10 years ago, but I feel like earIy on I had similar experiences to what you’ve described.
For me the landscape and huge size of different orgs at TAMU was also somewhat intimidating. I did push myself to join a couple of service oriented groups and had a great time but didn’t make close friends (which is fine). I ended up getting involved in research and became close friends with many of my lab mates. There are many great CS research labs that are welcoming to undergrads just starting if you have interests in that.
For me I also found (perhaps too late in my studies) that taking classes in other areas that interested me (social sciences, psych for me) was a great way to meet entirely different groups of people without a lot of the effort of joining an org.
I hope something in here is helpful! Although I was definitely a 2%er with respect to school spirit, I greatly enjoyed my time at A&M and hope you will too.
I am not 100% on HN policies regarding flagging / renaming threads, but I do see articles get renamed on a fairly regular basis without getting flagged into dead status first? Is there not a mechanism to suggest a different title without getting it pulled entirely?
I think the click bait title is a good knee-jerk reaction test, and I would suspect a fair number of folks flagged the thread without reading the full article. In the spirit of open discussion and intellectual honesty, this seems like a failure.
A more descriptive title would probably be for the best, though.
"The point of the polices was to counter the incredibly destructive result of the surge of cocaine, crack, heroin use in the mid 1970s and early to mid 1980s."
This would be plausible if the policies were focused on those drugs exclusively. However, I see the draconian policies targeted towards cannabis, hallucinogens, and amphetamines as pretty ample evidence that the "war on drugs" had much wider ambitions than curbing the usage of these hard narcotics.
Edit)
To your point of folks speaking harshly of our current drug policies - look at where we are now, 50 years later. A nationwide opioid crisis created by pharma companies. A generation, if not two, of young men and fathers locked up in prison with little to no room for upwards mobility. Communities, already economically deprived, losing stability, obliteration of the nuclear family core, and enduring oppressive policing policies. So yes, I think its entirely fair for a new generation to shit on the war on drugs. Even if the policy was formed with good intentions (which is, frankly, debatable), it is still bad policy.
Not directly related to the article, but -
I am extremely disappointed that this article was flagged. It certainly displays the general inability for people to openly analyze ideas and narratives that (at first glance) appear to go against their beliefs. I feel like this type of censorship across platforms is only adding ammunition to the persecution complex of those who are already skeptical of the vaccine.
While this is true, it overlooks the selection pressures that exist on nucleotide selection. If I recall correctly, the canonical bases are relatively robust to radiation in the ir, visible, and uv spectrums when compared to other nucleotides.
http://europepmc.org/article/PMC/4181368
Not sure if that's the correct article, but it's a good starting point on selection pressures for nucleotides and heterocycles.
That is to say - just because visible light is more energetic does not mean it is guaranteed to cause more damage.
(I briefly worked in Tor's lab - a truly incredible chemist and teacher)
During my rather short stint in a synthetic chemistry lab in college, I learned that it was a relatively standard practice for folks to "nuke" their reactions in a microwave in an attempt to speed things up. Certainly, nobody wanted anything to get ionized in these situations... So, to me the idea that biological systems may be able to pick up additional energy from local RF fields, and that this increase could potentially have adverse side effects, does not seem totally implausible.
By "nuke their reactions" you mean heating things up... Usually when there is more heat chemical reactions are faster (higher energy means higher chances for the right stuff to bump into each other)
Well, yes and no. If they just wanted to heat things up, they'd throw the reaction over a Bunsen burner or some other appropriate heating element. So while I agree that the reactions are speeding up due to an increase in available energy, I'm hesitant to say it's the same as simply "heating things up".
I think it would be fascinating to know more about the anabolic/metabolic pathways that create these molecules. Could it be we are seeing similar products created as mutations of core synthetic pathways?
It's important to understand that the venom of Bufo alvarius (the Colorado River toad)[1] contains 5-MeO-DMT, not NN-DMT. It is NN-DMT that is colloquially known as "DMT", and the two substances should NOT be confused.
They are very different in effect, though closely related chemically.
5-MeO-DMT is widely considered to be by far the most powerful psychedelic on the planet. NN-DMT is considered to be much more powerful than traditional psychedelics like LSD and psilocybin, but still a pale shadow compared to 5-MeO-DMT. NN-DMT is a lot more visual than 5-MeO-DMT, while the latter is considered to be much more likely to lead to states of non-dual awareness and ego-death.
For more information on 5-MeO-DMT see: [2]
Something else to note about the bufo alvarius venom: these toads are under threat and might well go extinct because they're being recklessly exploited for their venom.[3]
Furthermore, their venom contains a lot of other compounds apart from 5-MeO-DMT, some of which are known to be toxic when ingested. So it should always be smoked, never ingested! Even when smoked the venom could cause health problems for people with heart conditions. The synthetic form of 5-MeO-DMT only consists of 5-MeO-DMT itself, so has none of these problems, though people with heart conditions should probably still avoid even the synthetic version.
Finally, some people who style themselves "DMT shamans" use very dangerous practices like pouring water in the mouths of people who are essentially unconscious under the influence of 5-MeO-DMT, mixing drugs, slapping and kicking people under the influence, and covering their mouth and nose... fatalities have resulted from these dangerous practices.[4] So if you are considering trying this substance very carefully vet who you do it with!
I strongly recommend reading and following the guidelines from The Conclave.[5]
4:52, but I had already given up on the first page once and then had to give it another go. Like others mentioned here, a lot of these are unfortunately common in the wild - the ones that always set me into a rage are placeholder texts that remain in the field as I type and the inability to tab through fields.
Could you elaborate on what you mean by "compromised"? Sure, they can no longer be stacked 7 units high, but I am skeptical that cutting out a handful of windows and a door is going to make a container structurally unsound for the purposes of container homes.
Cut out a whole side wall? That's a very different story.
Maybe it's just me, maybe it's just a snapchat "feature", but one of the first things that struck me was the idea that this young woman sent the rant out to something like 250 people, of which a nonneglible portion was from her school (and had additional ties to the cheer group).
Comparing this to my own experiences - I know I said plenty of things in high school which would have landed me in hot waters had they reached the wrong ears. But they didn't, and while there was certainly some luck involved, there was also discretion at play. I kept my personal opinions personal and limited to other individuals or groups that I could trust.
So I guess my question is - does discretion play a role? Is there a difference if I whisper to a friend that I'd love to kick somebody's ass or if I post the same idea to a public social media space where it can be seen by a larger audience? What if I yell it out real loud during a break? What then?
It will be fascinating to see how this case plays out, as I can see valid arguments on both sides of the table. Free speech is key, but if we want schools to have any chance of succeeding there must be a way to protect students who are being unfairly targeted.
After freshman year, you'll still certainly be able to make plenty of friends, but I found that first year to be especially primed for socialization.
As others have mentioned - ask people to hang out outside if class. Get to the clubs you are interested in, even if they aren't full of other CS majors. Look for events sponsored by the school, like concerts or dances or sports games, and try to find folks who are interested in a good time there.
Best of luck to you!
P.s. - where are you going to school? If you feel comfortable sharing, you could potentially get some advice on campus specific activities (if there are any alumni around).