StudyDuo
If you're working out how to make friends in online classes, start where classmates already have to talk: the discussion board, live sessions and group projects. Reply with a question, offer to organize, then invite one or two people to a specific study session on video. Friendships grow from repeated contact around shared work, so keep meeting after the first chat.
How many students take all their classes online
You're far from the only one. In fall 2024, 26.5% of students at US degree-granting colleges took all their courses online (NCES, Digest of Education Statistics, table 311.15). That's about 5.2 million people, and another 28.2% took some of their courses online. Among graduate students, the fully online share was 40.5%.
| Courses online | Undergraduate | Graduate |
|---|---|---|
| All of them | ||
| Some | ||
| None |
Source: NCES, Digest of Education Statistics 2025, table 311.15 (provisional data)
What online classes take away
On campus, classmates start talking without planning to: in the corridor, at the next desk, while the lecturer sets up. Online, almost every contact has to be started by someone.
The National Survey of Student Engagement caught the cost during the pandemic. In 2021, 65% of first-year students took their courses mostly online; in 2022, 14% did (NSSE 2022 annual results). Working with classmates fell and recovered with it:
| Year | Prepared for exams with others | Worked with others on assignments |
|---|---|---|
| 2019 | ||
| 2020 | ||
| 2021 | ||
| 2022 |
Each year is a different sample, and the pandemic changed more than the format, so read this as a pattern rather than proof. NSSE's own explanation: students had fewer formal opportunities to interact with one another.
How to make friends in online classes in 6 steps
1. Post an introduction people can answer
Most courses open with an introductions thread. Skip the résumé and give classmates something to reply to: where you are, what you're juggling, and one question for the group. "Studying from Denver while working nights. Anyone else doing this course alongside a job?" invites answers in a way that "Hi, nice to meet you all" doesn't.
2. Reply to people, not just the prompt
Discussion boards usually ask for a post and a few replies. Make the replies count: use the person's name, add something you know, and end with a question about their example. Reply to the same few classmates each week, so the names start to repeat on both sides.
3. Arrive early to live sessions and use the breakout room
Join five minutes early with your camera on; that's when the small talk happens. In a breakout room, offer to take notes or share your screen. It gives you a reason to message the group afterward with the notes.
4. Set up the group project
A group project is the closest thing an online course has to the next desk. Be the one who sends the first message to the team, shares a document and proposes a short call.
Being put in a small group does create friendships. Zsófia Boda and colleagues randomly placed incoming engineering students at a Swiss university into small groups at an event two months before term (Scientific Reports, 2020). The 99 students who came were split into 17 groups of three to eight. In the first week of term, students reported 41 friendships within their groups, against 24.5 on average when the researchers redrew the groups at random: about two-thirds more.
5. Invite one or two people to a specific session
From a thread or a project, the easiest next step is one study session: a set time, a set task, on video. Classmates are likely more open to it than you expect. Nicholas Epley and Juliana Schroeder asked some train and bus commuters to talk with a stranger and others to keep to themselves (Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 2014). Those who talked had a more positive ride, and got no less done. People asked to predict the result expected the opposite, partly because they underestimated others' interest in talking.
6. Move the conversation somewhere that lasts
A course site closes when the term ends. Before the last week, suggest a place that stays open: a group chat, a Discord server, or following each other in a study app. In new groups, keep personal details out at first: no phone number or home address, and never share a course login.
What to write first
The hardest part of how to make friends in online classes is the first line. These are built to be easy to answer:
| Where | What to write |
|---|---|
| Introductions thread | "I'm in Phoenix, working days and studying evenings. Anyone else on that schedule? Happy to compare notes before the first quiz." |
| Reply to a discussion post | "Your example about remote teams helped me with question 2. Did you find this week's reading as dense as I did?" |
| Group project kickoff | "Hi all, I started a shared doc with the brief and a first split of tasks. Could we do a 30-minute call Tuesday or Wednesday evening?" |
| After a live session | "Good point about sampling bias in the breakout room. I'm reviewing it Thursday at 7 on video. Want to join?" |
| Direct message | "You seem on top of the stats unit. I'm doing the practice set Sunday morning, cameras on, mics off. Join if you like." |
| Last week of the course | "This was a good group. Want to keep a weekly study hour going next term? I can set up a chat." |
Three things make a first message harder to answer:
- Length. Two or three sentences and one question are enough.
- A vague ask. "We should study sometime" leaves the planning to the other person; name a day and a task.
- Adding people to a group chat without asking. Share a link and let them choose.
Keep it going after the course ends
The first conversation is the easy part. In the Swiss experiment, the extra friendships from the assigned groups lasted only until about a month into the academic year, three months after the event. The other effects, such as more friends in common, faded over the first year. A shared group gives you a start; repeated contact has to do the rest.
- Keep a standing slot. The same day and time each week, even after the course that brought you together.
- Plan the next course together. Taking the same course next term gives you a new shared deadline.
- Leave room for small talk. Keep five minutes before or after each session for talk that isn't about the course.
On StudyDuo, Find Partners lets you search people by interests, country and city, follow them and message them; you get a notification when someone you follow starts studying. To study with one classmate, schedule a 1:1 session: you post a time, they join you on video, and you can speak or type. Both of you need a verified photo. More formats for studying with others online are on the online study group page.
How to make friends in online college
In a fully online degree, the course is the campus, so everything above about how to make friends in online classes carries more weight. Look as well at your school's virtual clubs, peer mentoring programs and student organizations, and at local meetups if classmates live nearby. Classmates may be spread across time zones, so when you suggest a session, give the time in both zones.
There's an academic reason to bother. Robert Bernard and colleagues pooled 74 distance education studies in a 2009 meta-analysis (Review of Educational Research). Course designs that got students interacting with each other, the instructor or the material raised achievement, with an average effect of 0.38. The stronger the interaction, the larger the gain, and the link was clearest in courses without live sessions. The same habits are how to build relationships in online classes with instructors too: be specific, ask a question, and follow up.
If you'd rather start with one person, How to Be a Good Study Partner covers what to do once someone agrees to study with you. For long stretches of studying alone, Lonely While Studying? looks at the research on loneliness among students.
Course by course, see a Coursera study group and an Open University study group.
FAQ
Is it strange to message a classmate I've never met?
No. Keep the first message about the course and make it specific, such as a shared assignment or a study session, so it's easy to answer. If there's no reply, try someone else: people miss messages in busy weeks.
What if my online class has no live sessions?
Use the discussion board and any course chat, and suggest one optional call a week before the first big deadline. A short call gives people faces to go with the names.
Should I add classmates on social media?
Ask first, and start with something tied to the course, such as a group chat or a Discord server. Personal accounts can come later, after you've worked together a few times.
Do online friendships from class last?
Some do, mostly the ones that move past the course: a weekly session, a shared next course, a chat that stays active between terms. Without regular contact, they tend to fade with the term.
