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I'm on mute right now, but my professor is showing us a video. [MUSIC] As a student in a pandemic, there's so much going on where you experience this burnout like every single day you feel like you're doing too much. And that you get into a mentality that we're in a pandemic. We're all at home, you have the whole entire day to do it. But that's far from the truth. Anybody whether you lost a loved one or not, you're at home but you're incredibly sad. You're grieving the life that you had. [MUSIC] &gt;&gt; My name is Huda Ganatra. I'm 20 years old. I live in the northwest side of Chicago where I've lived my whole entire life. I am currently a student at DePaul University where I'm a sophomore. Majoring in accounting and data science. [MUSIC] My transition to college was a bit, it went smoothly but was also a little nerve wracking. I really enjoyed school. I've always been that girl who loves school and who loved learning and love being at the top of a class. And when I got to university, I was like, I don't need anyone it's fine. I don't need anybody to help me. I'll just be on my own. I'll go to classes on my own. I'll eat lunch on my own. But after a while, I realize I'm like, this is not the life I want to live. [MUSIC] So I would text my groups as I have some my high school classmates. And I'd be like, what are you guys doing? How are you guys handling university? How are you guys finding friends and you'd be like join a club people just like you. And you're like, take advantage of that. This is your time to find who you are and really figure out what you want to do. &gt;&gt; And so that's exactly what I did. I went into the Muslim room at DePaul. I sat down and I saw this girl there and I said, I need friends. And she was like, hi. She's like, I'll be your friend and we instantly hit it off. And I did that with like a couple more people too, I was like, I need friends. And we all just became this really big friend group and looking back at that now. I realize how important it in was and how crucial was to this past year making that first move of finding those friends. Because when during the pandemic when everything transitioned online. I was still having people I was able to rely on for my classes because, as a student during the pandemic. You just feel incredibly tired and this burnout, but having those friends really helped me and supported me. Because I was like, I'm not the only one in this situation. And just being able to talk to people who really understood what I was going through. 

Huda has lived in Chicago her whole life—but when she started college locally at DePaul University, she still had to make a fresh start. Finding friends was hard at first, so she decided to turn to her high school group chat for help. Their advice: “Join a club!” So she did! Now she has friends with similar interests and majors who she can turn to for support and advice—even as they remain socially distanced through the COVID-19 pandemic.

Taking a bold approach to making new friends

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