Kat Rogers
Staff Writer
Trojan Outreach held its second “speed-friending event,” allowing students to mingle and meet others on Tuesday in the Trojan Center lounge at 6 p.m.
Riley Jacks, a junior human services major from Oxford, works with Trojan Outreach.
“Trojan Outreach is a peer education program that essentially bases all of our programs on what isn’t really coming in through the classroom: sexual health, drug and alcohol education, sexual assault, and bystander intervention,” Jacks said. “Really anything you could think of that affects us as college students that isn’t history or math.”
The evening was designed similar to a speed-dating environment, or in this case speed “friending,” allowing students the opportunity to meet others as well as participate in a gift card raffle.
Students were paired up with another person and provided with conversation starters. The pair talked for about five minutes before switching, and every fifteen minutes, an attendee was chosen as a raffle winner.
Jacks described the event as a way for freshman and other students to get out of their comfort zone or friend group and meet new people.
“There was like 40 or 50 people there (last year) and it was just a good way for students to get to know each other,” Jacks said. “We know that it isn’t very easy if you aren’t immediately involved with some sort of organization or club to reach outside your small circle of friends. We thought it would just be a good way for students to branch out.”
“I’m a freshman so I don’t know that many people on campus so it was a way to meet new people,” said Madison Green, a freshman nursing major from Sparks, Nevada.
Several students like Brooke Jeffrey, a freshman from Troy, and Christian Beason, a biomedical sciences major from San Diego, California, saw this event as a way to interact with other students.
Trojan Outreach put up flyers around campus as well as posting on their social media page to publicize the “speed friending” event.
Mikala Chenault, a senior hospitality and tourism management major from Keizer, Oregon, said she came because of the possibility of friendships that may develop.
“I don’t think it’s ever too late to make new friends,” Chenault said. “It’s my last year in Troy, but I think just little relationships that start over meeting someone at speed friending can develop into life-long friendships.”
For more events or updates from Trojan Outreach, readers can follow the group on social media at @TrojanOutreach1 on Instagram and Twitter and @trojanoutreach on Facebook.
