Jenni Kyyny does not have a single friend at university
One in five higher education students feels lonely on a regular basis. Jenni Kyyny spent her first year surrounded by others but still alone. She describes what it feels like when everyone else seems to have found one another.
Original text: Maria Muilu
Pictures: Heidi Ahvenus
Translation: Henna Herronen
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Jenni Kyyny was wearing sweats and carrying a pack of toilet paper under her arm and a carton of milk in her hand, and she felt like running away.
It was the 30th of April, and the Prisma store on Hämeenkatu was packed with students. All the other customers seemed to be wearing brightly-coloured student overalls and carrying six-packs of long drink under their arms and doughnuts and bottles of sparkling wine in their hands. Everyone was on their way to celebrate May Day with their friends.
And Jenni Kyyny was trying to disappear between the shelves because she felt so embarrassed.
Holy shit, what a total loser! Here she is buying toilet paper while everybody else is going out drinking, everyone thought.
Or at least it felt that way for Kyyny.
In summer 2026, Kyyny contacted Visiiri’s editorial team. She wanted to openly share how it feels to be a lonely university student, without hiding her name or face.
She had done some background research. A Google search for “student loneliness” yielded results like support services, chats, and phone numbers.
That was not the kind of help Kyyny needed. She did not exactly feel like she was struggling with her mental health.
What she needed was someone else to admit that they, too, were lonely.
In the media, lonely interviewees often remain anonymous, or the story is about how overcoming loneliness eventually resulted in happiness. Kyyny says that she found “maybe one or two” pieces in which someone admitted to being lonely without hiding
their identity. This just reinforced the feeling that Jenni Kyyny was the only person in the world without any friends at university.
In reality, it was not quite so.
According to the 2024 Finnish Student Health and Wellbeing Survey, one in five higher education students feels lonely on a regular basis. The survey is carried out once every four years. The same grim picture is painted by HelsinkiMissio’s 2024 survey that investigated loneliness experienced by higher education students: half of the students who responded to the survey reported experiencing harmful loneliness.
Those statistics are only a Google search away. This article gets emotional.
A sluggish autumn
In autumn 2024, Jenni Kyyny began her studies at Tampere University. She had moved to a new town and hardly knew anyone.
Her autumn as a fresher got off to a somewhat sluggish start.
“I thought that I would go there and then just stand alone in a corner somewhere.”
On the first day of the orientation week, the other freshers seemed to somehow already know each other. Kyyny had decided to pass on the kick-off picnic the day before. Now many seemed to have found their own groups to sit with in lecture halls.
Kyyny felt a little alone, but that was no big deal. After all, it was the first day.
After the opening lecture, she heard others making plans for lunch, but she did not want to impose herself on others. She went home.
In hindsight, that was the first mistake, she says.
Kyyny still made an effort to attend events during the orientation week. At first, new students were hanging out in one big group of freshers, and it was easy to fit in at parties, especially if alcohol was involved.
As the autumn went on, the big group started to split into smaller groups. Kyyny could no longer find her place in those groups.
Going to events started to feel uncomfortable in advance.
“I thought that I would go there and then just stand alone in a corner somewhere.”
The vicious cycle had gained its momentum.
For the human mind, this is not a particularly odd reaction. Avoidance is actually very natural for us humans, says team leader and psychologist from the Finnish Student Health Service (FSHS), Juulia Lahdensuo.
“It is very understandable to avoid the situations that we find difficult or that cause unpleasant feelings.”
New situations always come with insecurity. Will I be enough? Will I find company? Will I enjoy myself?
Going to events is stressful.
“And because we naturally want to get away from stressful situations, the solution can be to avoid going at risk of it strengthening and maintaining the feeling of loneliness,” Lahdensuo explains.
Jenni Kyyny had not consciously decided to isolate herself, either. She just started to miss out on things
Fifteen minutes can be a long time
“It was admittedly a bit stressful when you go sit there by yourself and hope for someone to sit next to you. You’re then overjoyed if a group of at least somewhat familiar faces does.”
Being lonely does not mean being alone all the time. At university, you are usually surrounded by an abundance of people.
The important thing is whether you find the relationships close and meaningful.
“We might meet people during the day, but these interactions do not fulfil what we seek in relationships. This might result in feeling like there are not enough people in my life who care about me or with whom I can reciprocally share matters that are meaningful to me. That, in turn, can add to the feeling of loneliness,” Lahdensuo says.
In the lecture room, sitting alone in the middle of other students did not feel that strange to Jenni Kyyny. She focused on the lectures.
It was harder to wait and see if someone she knew would come sit next to her.
“It was admittedly a bit stressful when you go sit there by yourself and hope for someone to sit next to you. You’re then overjoyed if a group of at least somewhat familiar faces does.”
The loneliness was even more glaringly obvious during the breaks between lectures. Fifteen minutes might sound like a short time, but when you are hanging around in the corridor by yourself, the minutes drag on.
“You see everyone else going to grab a coffee together, and you’re left contemplating if you should spend the next fifteen minutes just twiddling your thumbs or trying to figure out what to do.”
Maybe you could kill fifteen minutes by going to the toilet.
The hardest part of the day often came in the evening. At least during the day Kyyny was able to meet her fellow students and go have lunch with someone. In the evening, her phone informed her of what other people were doing. Other students’ Instagram stories displayed the subject association’s events that Kyyny had not attended. They were hanging out somewhere together, and she was at home. Comparative thoughts were on full blast again.
“Here I am at home, watching Netflix with my bag of sweets.”
There is a psychological explanation for this feeling, too. According to Lahdensuo, we tend to notice the things we are lacking in our own lives. This is why seeing other people’s party photo carousels feels so bad when you are cooped up indoors by yourself.
“It is completely understandable that we notice the things that we long for in our own lives.”
Happrot remained a dream
The first sits party was held at the end of September. In the registration form for the sits, there was a question about seating preferences. This is customary to sits parties, as it is nicer to sit next to your friends. Kyyny left the field blank.
She was seated in the tutors’ table.
“No one at the sits party probably even noticed me sitting next to the tutors, and no one surely was interested in why I was seated there. But for me, it still felt like here I was sitting alone with the tutors, while all the other freshers were sitting together with their friends.”
In October, the legendary Hämeenkadun Appro pub crawl event, “Happrot”, was around the corner.
Kyyny’s twin sister had started her studies at the same time in a different field. In autumn 2024, Happrot happened to take place near the sisters’ birthday. A legendary student event as a birthday party! Woohoo!
The sisters were eagerly waiting for the ticket sales to begin. They came out of the great battle for tickets as winners.
“Yes, I secured a ticket! Yes, I’m going to the event!”
Only a few hours later an essential question crossed Kyyny’s mind. Who was she actually going to go with?
It was only a couple of months into her first autumn at university. Groups had already started to form, and there were hardly any conversations about leisure activities in the subject association’s group chat anymore. Her sister, too, had already agreed to go with her own friends.
“Of course I could have gone alone, thinking that I’ll just grab a map and go. I could’ve found someone to go with. But I thought that if I now go on a pub crawl drunk with some random group, I won’t get friends out of it anyway.”
Kyyny ended up selling her ticket.
On the night of the event, she decided to go for a bike ride. She was a little bored. Kyyny lived on Hallituskatu back then, near the city centre. Outside she was greeted by a crowd of lively students in overalls. People were pub-crawling, “celebrations were in full swing, and everyone was drunk and having fun.”
Kyyny cycled past.
Why did this become invisible?
There are strong preconceptions associated with first-year students in particular, says Juulia Lahdensuo. New students are expected to find their own group of friends and build a new social life.
“If that doesn’t happen, it can bring about feelings of shame and make you question whether you’ve done something wrong.”
“Why can’t I make friends? Why does everyone else fit in? What’s wrong with me, since I can’t make friends?”
Jenni Kyyny hardly told anyone that she did not have friends at university. It involved too much shame. When her partner, parents, or relatives asked her about student life, Kyyny told them about her courses and advancing in her studies.
Another way was to laugh it all off.
“Like heh, I’m such a terrible loser, I’ve been at university for five months and haven’t made a single friend.”
In reality, there was nothing funny about loneliness. It was horrible, felt bad, and got Kyyny wondering if there was something wrong with her.
“Why can’t I make friends? Why does everyone else fit in? What’s wrong with me, since I can’t make friends,” she describes the thoughts that kept running through her mind.
Kyyny does not think that other students actually knew that she was lonely. People are mostly focused on themselves and usually cannot read each other’s minds.
“I’ve also said here that I thought that everyone was staring at me in Prisma or at the sits party, but that wasn’t really the case. Most likely no one else gave it a single thought.”
Hindsight is always 20/20.
If Kyyny could have brought herself to speak up on a round of catch-ups about not really finding friends and being bother about it, someone could have expressed similar feelings. Maybe someone would have asked her to join them for lunch.
“But as I was too ashamed to talk anyone about it, it remained invisible for everyone else.”
Don’t let it become a big hurdle
Now the lonely year at university feels like a distant memory. Kyyny is still enrolled in the university but is now working full-time. She no longer feels lonely because she does not consider herself as a student anymore.
Yet the difficult experiences of her first year at university have stayed with her, which is why Kyyny wanted to talk about them now. She knows how it feels to think you are the only one.
“It doesn’t mean that there’s anything wrong with you if you’re lonely. And you’re definitely not the only one. Even if no one around you talks about it, there are many students who experience loneliness at least occasionally.”
There is one thing she would have done differently: she would have asked people to join in back when all the groups had not yet formed.
Now she hopes to share the same message with others who are feeling lonely.
“Don’t let it become such a big hurdle that you can barely bring yourself to attend lectures. Try to ask at least one person to join you for lunch.”
However, the responsibility cannot lie solely with the lonely student. Juulia Lahdensuo underlines that institutions of higher education should also identify those students who are left alone.
Loneliness can increase mental health challenges, stress, low mood, and anxiety. Consequently, it can hinder academic progress or attendance in learning situations, Lahdensuo lists. Lahdensuo suggests that institutions of higher education should offer recurring low-pressure situations where students can have the opportunity to make contact with each other.
Now it is autumn again, and a new mass of freshers is flooding the campuses looking for their lecture rooms. Starting your studies involves various things that someone tells you about, advises you on, or shows you in advance.
In Jenni Kyyny’s opinion, the possibility of being left alone is not talked about enough.
“When I started my studies, we were told where to apply for student financial aid, where to eat, where to get your student card. But no one said anything about making friends. Everyone assumed it just somehow happens. No one talks about what happens if it doesn’t.”
Feeling lonely? Start by talking about it
You don’t have to deal with loneliness alone. Psychologist Juulia Lahdensuo from the Finnish Student Health Service (FSHS) encourages you to bring up the issue with someone you trust. It can be a friend, a family member, or someone else you are close with.
If you have struggled with loneliness for a long period of time, or if it is accompanied by significant long-term stress, low mood, decline in study motivation, or difficulties in your studies, it is worth seeking support for the situation. You can bring the issue up with the university or seek help from the FSHS, for example.
Your own subject association can also be a good place to start. You can ask the board members about student events and opportunities to meet other students, among other things. For low-pressure socialising, you can check the @kaverideitti channel on Jodel, for instance
Help and support
The Finnish Student Health Service’s (FSHS) general and mental health services: +358 46 710 1073
Tampere University study psychologists: studypsychologist.tau@tuni.fi
Trey: sopo@trey.fi
Read more:
A fifth of students report recurrent loneliness – whose responsibility is it to increase the sense of community?
Opiskelijat kertovat fuksivuotensa yksinäisyydestä – ”Pitää muistaa, ettei ole ulkopuolinen, vaikka siltä tuntuisikin” (in Finnish)
Näkökulma: Fuksisyksyn yksinäisyys ei ole ikuinen tuomio (in Finnish)