While some may consider college to be the best place for socializing with friends, others may find it frightening to go out on the campus and interact with their fellow students. Being introverts, many students experience the inability to make friends. Such shy nature does not only affect the social life but affects academic performance in multiple aspects as well. For instance, if you are shy, you would experience difficulty in giving presentations in front of your class and therefore gained low marks because of it.
A student may be of a shy nature, but there is also a possibility that he is shy due to any incident or trauma. So, it is essential to recognize the impact of shyness on your life and learn how to handle it. While it is easy for some students to overcome shyness and adjust with other students at college, others might need to work hard on getting rid of shyness in order to escape from its adverse effects on their academic and social life. If you are facing problems at overcoming shyness, consider the following tips to help yourself.
Talk With Your Teachers
Do not hesitate in asking for help from your teacher if your college just started and you are facing troubles in communicating with fellow students due to shyness. Teachers have experience of handling all kinds of situations in a classroom including shy moments of their students during a quiz or presentation. Communicate your inability to perform in a presentation with your teacher and ask how you can overcome shyness and become more interactive in classroom.
Talking to your teacher about your shyness is also a great idea because it will make your teacher understand your problem better and handle it accordingly in the classroom. Teachers can also help you handle bullies if they are well-aware of your nature.
Find Others Like You
It is not easy to spot other people who are alike in nature, on the first day of college. So, do not get disappointed too soon if you don’t make any friends in the first few days of your college. Take your time and find other students who are also shy in nature. By making friends with other shy students you will become able to help each other out in coping up with problems in classroom.
You can also discuss the problems that you face due to shyness with your friends and ask them for suggestions and learn from their experiences as well. Learn how to start a small talk and try to become friendly with the entire class not just a few students so that you can improve your people skills and overcome hurdles you face due to shyness.
Discuss With Academic Advisors
If you fail to overcome shyness on your own, do not feel that it is the end of world. You can always contact the academic advisers regarding your problem and seek their guidance and help. Academic advisers can provide you with various strategies that will help you adjust better in the classroom. Remember that too much shyness often ends up making you become more distant from the people around you and this in turn harms you in more than one way. Suppose for an instance that you’ve an assignment to write but you can’t due to any difficulty. If you are shy you would not ask your educator or even classmates for help, and you’d definitely choose to buy assignment instead. So, don’t be afraid to ask for help, because it is your right to do so.
Seek Help from Student Counselors
If you think your shyness has been triggered by any incident or trauma, it is best to make a visit to on-campus student counselor’s office. Instead of missing out on great opportunities to socialize during various events at your college, discuss your problem with a counselor and find a solution for it as soon as you can.
Before you opt for any help regarding shyness, you first need to analyze if you are really shy or just an introvert. Instead of putting limits on your social life, try to expand it as much as you can. Even though becoming more and more social may make you uncomfortable at the beginning but this may greatly help you overcome shyness, eventually but surely.
