Facebook connects incoming students long before they get to Mac

Movies, music, making friends – what’s important to incoming students doesn’t change much from year to year, but where they talk about those things has changed dramatically.

Incoming students are connecting with their soon-to-be classmates through a “Class of 2017” Facebook group – a platform that lets the sometimes far-flung students build relationships with each other long before they get to Hamilton.

Cindy Lam, a Robert Bateman High School student from Burlington, Ont., is one of the hundreds who have flocked to the group in recent weeks. She says she’s already learned a great deal about her peers and the University by being a member.

“A lot of us have bonded over our similarities, and over the things we’ve found interesting about each other,” says the incoming social sciences student. “Many people have similar interests, but every person has something unique about them.”

Helping students get to know each other is exactly what student recruitment staff had in mind when they started the group, which in previous years was created by volunteers from the online community forum Macinsiders.

“Not so long ago, contact with each other typically wouldn’t be made until residence assignments were sent out, well into the summer,” says Andy Moonsammy, a liaison officer and administrator of the Facebook group. “Students can now use networks like Facebook as places to socialize, get to know one another and find contacts for the other social networks they use.”

Over the last few weeks, students have posted self-portraits and short personal bios, listing their favourite books, movies (Harry Potter is a hit with their demographic) and sports, among other things.

The page also offers a forum for the incoming students to ask each other, current McMaster students and University staff questions about admissions, residences and campus life.

Members of the group will have their first chance to connect in real life (or IRL, in web-speak) May 11 at the University open house known as May at Mac. Enrolment Services staff have organized a meet-up and “future class of 2017” photo to be taken at 1:30 p.m. on the campus’s central lawn.