The academic courses young adults take have a large influence on the friendships they form in both high school and college, according to a national study conducted by an MSU professor.
The study evaluates high school students, but the same principles carry over to students when they eventually go to college, said Kenneth Frank, a professor in MSU’s College of Education and the study’s leader.
Frank developed a computer algorithm that evaluated transcripts and found groups of high schoolers that set themselves apart from others — students taking Latin or participating in marching band, for example.
Another finding shows friendships formed in a classroom play a role in a student’s academic performance.
“If you’re surrounded by students in one class who are taking high level mathematics, you are then more likely to sign up for high level mathematics yourself,” Frank said. “The group of people from which you find friends has a direct effect on the norms that affect your performance.”
This indirect peer pressure carries over to later in life.
MSU fisheries and wildlife professor Jack Liu conducted a study that showed the behavior of people’s neighbors influences their own conservation efforts.
“That’s the power of social norms,” Liu said in a statement. “If you see your neighbors doing it, you’re more likely to do it.”
But there are differences in the social norms high school and college students experience, Frank said.
“High schoolers experience their social world from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., and that’s very intense,” he said. “In college, you’re not in your courses as much, and you don’t share with as many people in those courses.”
Those friendship choices made in high school have an influence on college friendships, Frank said.
“Several things can happen,” Frank said. “You can keep your high school friends, and they might continue to support you in college. Or your friends from high school shape the experiences you seek out in college, and you make new friends during those experiences. Or the type of people you were comfortable with in high school are the people you’re then comfortable in college, in classes or the dorms.”
Some students have seen that connection firsthand.
Hospitality business senior Bin Bin Wang said she often met people in her classes that she kept in touch with after the courses concluded.
“I’m still friends with some of the people I graduated with, I’m still in touch with that group of friends,” Wang said. “You meet students at orientation or in the dorms, but you seek out people with the same personality traits (as high school friends).”
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