Your network of friendships in college play a vital role in achieving success in your college life. They can be good for you or they can be bad. And this is probably one of your most favorite part of being in college - getting to know, and being with a lot of friends.
Janice McCabe, a Dartmouth sociologist and the author of Connecting in College: How Friendship Networks Matter for Academic and Social Success, analyzed the friendship networks of 67 students from Midwestern University and here are the three network types that she found.
Tight-knit networks
In this network, almost all students know each other because it includes their hometown friends as well as new friends found in college. Tight-knit networks can either be a good influence because of the amount of support they offer each other. On the other hand, it can also be disadvantageous because they can be a reason for distraction like when everybody decides to skip classes or set aside studying for other activities. Each one's behavior can spread easily in this network.
Network of clusters
This second group also called compartmentalizers by McCabe refer to the ones who don't really rely a lot on their friends for support which makes it easier for them to be successful in college. For example, a student separates her circle of friends as friends from home and friends in college. This way, she is getting different types of support from both clusters.
Individual friendships
This third category refers to the collected friends from several clusters joined together in a group of friends who were less connected to one another. This is the type of network where a student, despite having so many friends, still ends up being alone with his academic pursuit but is able to achieve success independently.
