Last semester, one of my best friends from high school told me she was looking to transfer schools. She attended a smaller college with an enrollment of about 4,000 students. As a joke, I told her to consider transferring to U of I, knowing she would instantly shut it down. This friend of mine is very introverted, and would much rather spend time practicing guitar or reading a book then going to a party with hundreds of people. I thought she would hate it here. After our conversation, however, I started thinking about my experience at U of I and came to a different realization.
When I was in high school, there were about 160 people in my grade, and 600 in the school overall. I had classes year after year with the same general circle of students who, like me, took as many honors and college credit courses as possible. As an extrovert, I really enjoyed constantly being surrounded by people. I knew everyone from the past years and could share inside jokes and memories with them during class, lunch, and after-school activities. Even if I didn't hang out with most of my classmates outside of school, we were all knew each other's personalities very well just by having so many classes together. Every day at school truly felt like a social event of its own.
When I first started my college classes, everything was different. Freshman year, my schedule was filled with mostly Gen Ed classes. I was taking classes like Public Speaking, World Modernism, and Business 101 - there was no overlap between who was in any of my classes. I would see some people on Friday and forget they existed until the same day the following week. During the school week, I spend the majority of my days alone either walking to class or going places in between classes to study or kill time.
Another thing I realized was that at a large university, it's much easier to fly under the radar. In large lecture halls, you can sit in a different seat every class and noone will question it. It's normal to not talk to the people you have class with because most of them are strangers. As an extrovert, this set-up frustrates me, as I could go the entire day without having a conversation with someone I know. If I was an introvert, however, I think I would enjoy the opportunity to be alone with my thoughts and not have any pressure to make small talk with people throughout the day.
On top of that, I feel as if I went to a small school I would always feel inclined to do things with people. In high school, I mainly had one core group of friends that I would do stuff with at night or on the weekends. If they were getting together, it would be odd if I didn't show up to the event without having a reason or letting someone know. At a big state school, if you don't show up to something, you can trick people into thinking you have much cooler plans, even if you're just hanging out in your dorm alone. There are always hundreds of things to do on a given day, so its not questionable if you miss a social event or club meeting every once in a while. People may assume you just have better things to do.
I've only ever attended a large University, so I don't have a truthful double-sided perspective on this topic. However, from my experience here, even a college campus packed with people can feel very isolating, and it's not hard to find time to spend with yourself. So, if there are any high school introverts that are looking into which college to attend, don't rule out the larger universities so quickly.
