On campuses across Canada, it’s hard to find a student without a phone in hand. Screens have become the starting point for countless friendships, with social media acting as our new campus common room. However, at McGill, many students insist their closest connections weren’t sparked by Instagram or Facebook Messenger. Rather, these friendships were born in residence kitchens, fostered at late-night club meetings, or initiated during campus events that turned peers into companions. In other words, McGill friendships aren’t accidental; they’re engineered by the spaces that bring students together.
But are these friendships built to last, or do they fade as quickly as they form?
For most McGill students, residence acts as a social fast-track. Pack a few hundred 18-year-olds into the same building and friendships seem to form overnight. Roommates become confidantes, hallways turn into hangout spots, and shared kitchens double as confessionals.
But proximity can be a double-edged sword: seemingly unshakable friendships often fade by move-out day. Many first-year friendships grow out of convenience. While shared classes and dorms provide instant companionship, these friendships often lack the depth to endure. Once schedules shift and students scatter across the city, these first-year connections undergo their greatest test: to discover whether or not they can survive.
By second and third year, the social map shifts. Most students move off-campus, trading residences for apartments. Without the built-in convenience of bumping into friends in the elevator or grabbing a late-night snack in the common room, maintaining connections suddenly requires planning. Hangouts must be scheduled, transit routes considered, and calendars synced, especially as majors and minors narrow students onto different academic tracks. The result? Social circles usually shrink, but the friendships that remain deepen. Instead of dozens of surface-level bonds, students invest in fewer relationships strong enough to withstand summers apart and the physical sprawl of city life.
By fourth year, the social landscape has largely settled. The structures that once fostered accidental encounters have been replaced by more intentional networks: study groups, long-term club connections, and departmental associations. Friendships evolve, with some connections fading after a season, and others deepening through shared investment and mutual growth. The result is a smaller, yet more resilient circle of friends who leave McGill with enduring relationships.
But, what happens when a student enters into McGill’s social scene halfway through their degree? Exchange students know this challenge well. Unlike first-year students in residence, they arrive without a built-in network. Instead, they rely on connections made back at their home university or friendships made in class. One exchange student explained that not living in residence has made them feel “less pressurized to feel part of McGill,” and allows them to enjoy Montreal on their own terms. Yet, it also meant they were “not immediately integrated into McGill life.” While clubs, orientation events, and other university-organized programs exist to help students socialize, these events can be difficult to access or simply go unnoticed. As our interviewee explained: “there was an exchange orientation that my friends said had such a long queue they left.” Because exchange students often lack built-in networks and face limited access to social events, friendships tend to form slowly. And, when opportunities like orientation events are overcrowded or inaccessible, it becomes even more difficult to find and build lasting connections. This interviewee’s perspective shines a light on both the strengths and limitations of McGill’s social infrastructure: while it provides numerous initial points of contact for students, those connections do not always guarantee depth or longevity.
Friendships at McGill are shaped as much by its institutional structures as by the students themselves. From residence halls to intentional networks, the university creates both opportunities and limitations for connection. If friendships are solely fostered through orientation programs and clubs, what does that say about the ties we form? Are they truly organic, or are we simply navigating the infrastructure that McGill provides? And for students entering midstream, how can our university better balance accessibility and depth in its design?