Courtney Klamar has 29 friends at AU from Virginia, Kansas and Massachusetts even though she has yet to set foot on campus. Klamar, a high school senior from Columbus, Ohio, will be attending AU for the first time in the fall. She met these people through the social networking Web site Facebook, and she is not the only person using this site to find friends.
A search in Facebook brings up 124 students who are in the Class of 2011 at AU, as well as an American University Class of 2011 Facebook group, consisting of 427 members so far.
Students in the group use the "Wall" and message board to talk with other students about why they chose to attend AU, where they are from, where they are living and what they plan to study.
"In today's world it is so important to have connections," Klamar said. "Facebook allows me to make connections before I arrive; it makes the entire transition easier."
The ease with which people can network on sites like Facebook has changed the first-year college experience for many people.
"I got a sense of the AU community by the groups created and what people had on their profiles and I knew names and faces before I got here," Hannah Cayton, a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences, said.
While social networking sites make the initial transition easier, according to students, such sites don't change the way people make friends once they have been on campus for a while.
Sahar Rajput, a freshman in CAS, said she could not remember any Facebook friendships that became lasting friendships after coming to AU.
"I see some of them around campus," Rajput said of her first Facebook friends. "Facebook doesn't ensure creating friendships. Relationships should be founded on face-to-face interaction."
When asked, several members of the incoming freshman class admitted they don't think the "friends" they have made online will necessarily last once they are on campus, but it is better than nothing.
"Just having a 'friend' on Facebook doesn't necessarily mean you are 'buddy-buddy' with them," Bill Killion, a member of the Class of 2011 in the School of Public Affairs, said. "They're acquaintances so you can learn about people you wish to know more in depth."
While Klamar continues to meet people on Facebook and increase her number of friends, she said she looks forward to meeting them face-to-face when she arrives at AU in the fall.
"I think it will be great to have familiar faces on campus," Klamar said. "And I'm sure once I get to know them better, I will develop closer relationships and really be able to call at least some of them my friends."
According to the Web site, Facebook began in February 2004. It was initially a networking site only for college students and recent alumni, requiring an e-mail ending in ".edu" to register. Over the past three years, the site has expanded to include students associated with high schools as well as people associated with geographic regions, such as cities. To date, there are over 19 million registered users in different networks.
