On Feb. 13, Sonny Medina, the director of educational events, hosted CSU Bakersfield’s first-ever speed friending event in the Student Union Multipurpose Room.

The idea of speed friending came from Medina hearing the positive experiences that his family and friends had at speed friending events that were held at CSU Sacramento. For this reason, he thought this would be an excellent opportunity for students to network and make new friends on campus.

“It creates an opportunity for students to build a community in a safe environment,” said Medina.

Medina went on to discuss how he would have liked to have gone to an event like this because he was an “introvert pretending to be an extrovert.”

He believed that this event could help students make friends in a fast and efficient way.

The event included pizza, drinks, and a variety of goody bags and candy. The room was set up with two long tables for the event. On top of the tables, there were baskets full of icebreaker questions to ask whomever you were sitting in front of.

The icebreaker questions were made to stimulate conversation by asking a variety of questions that could lead to finding unexpected interests.

Some questions included:
•”What song do you find yourself singing in the shower?”

          •”What did you want to be as a teen?”

          •”What superpower would you like to have?” 

The reaction to these questions were positive, and many of the participants put them to good use in their conversations.

In response to the icebreaker questions, Miracle Sam, an art major, said, “These are pretty cool.”

There were other positive aspects that students talked about.

“I like the whole desk setup that the event has,” said Nicole Lowrie, an art major.

“The email made me laugh,” said Iman Shidawa, an art major.
The email that she referred to contained a flier with two coffee cups being held with a caption that read, “Find Your New Best Friends.”

Students also brought attention to some areas in which they could improve the event for next time.

“I wish it could be better advertised,” said Lowrie.

A common complaint was that the event was a bit slow, and there was no one telling certain rows to transition to the next person. This caused confusion and many stayed talking to the same people. Many also noted that there were a lot of people leaving in the middle of the event, so at times there weren’t as many people participating.

There were also issues that Medina spoke about. He spoke of how there were supposed to be clubs participating in the event, but that the timing was a bit off as many events were happening simultaneously.

Medina spoke of how next time they would plan better, so there will be clubs participating at the event for more student involvement.