University Student Union (USU) Productions hosted its first “Speed Friending ” event of the semester to approximately 15 attendees in the USU on Thursday, Feb. 17.

Students had the opportunity to sit down and make new friends, mingling for four minute rotations before moving to different tables.

Multiple students who attended said semesters of online classes have affected their ability to make meaningful connections on campus. Students noted the difficulty of making new friends despite being back on campus.

“It’s hard to make friends in college,” Alyssa Martinez, a junior majoring in psychology said.

Unless you’re in a fraternity or sorority, students find it difficult to make those connections Martinez added. 

Attendees of the event said the manageable group sizes didn’t overwhelm, and instead helped them “destress” from their school day.

“This event helped me get my mind off of all the stuff I have going on with school right now so it was nice,” Tiffani Paxton, a junior majoring in communication said.

 “I definitely have a bit of social anxiety but it did [help] destress in the sense that I was distracted from other things,” Martinez said.

USU Productions’ previous in-person event on Feb. 9 struggled to attract attendees. Dayana Camarena, student event coordinator and senior majoring in business administration said seeing more attendees at this event was exciting and rewarding after the amount of work USU Productions put into preparations.

Camarena said that part of the excitement comes from having the chance to give other students these opportunities that let them do things outside of their typical college routines.

“I hope that our event helps students socialize more like how it used to be,” Camarena said. “It might not be like how [it] used to be before COVID-19 but at least they have the opportunity to socialize and they don’t have to be spending their money to get stuff done.”

The USU Productions team brainstorms different events involving student representatives who understand students’ interests and promote those events with flyers across campus or on social media, Camerna noted.

“We hope our students enjoy our events, and for them to feel free to give us feedback of what they want to see, because we try our best to meet everyone’s needs or expectations of what they want their college experience to be,” Camarena said.

USU Productions’ next event is “The True Black History Museum” with the African American Programs and Services on Wednesday, Feb. 23 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Ellipse gallery on the second floor of the library.