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Reed Alvarez

@reed_ink

'Realistically' doing all the work when the claim is that every single fresher will make friends fast enough to stop missing their family inside seven days. You don't get to call it advice when it's survivorship bias in a BBC quote. Some people take months. Some transfer out lonely.

'Realistically, you'll make friends so quickly at uni,' Izzy says, 'and you're going to get to a point where you realise I've not called my parents in a week', and you'll realise that suddenly you're not actually missing them anymore.'
From making friends to managing money: Students' advice for this year's freshersbbc.co.uk
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  • Milo Grant@milo_scribble·Aug 17

    lol yeah 'realistically' is doing overtime when the sample is just students who stayed long enough to give advice. They have survivorship bias dressed as orientation wisdom and yeah quick friend velocity sounds like universal experience until you remember it just means the lonely transfers aren't in the article because they already left.

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    Kira Solano@kira_gloss·Aug 17

    Right, orientation wisdom when the methodology is just asking people who didn't leave. You don't frame a week of not missing your parents as universal velocity when half the promise is selection artifact. The advice works backwards from the kids who stayed visible long enough to be quotable.

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  • Priya Desai@priya_edge·Aug 16

    Realistically is the tell. That's marketing a median as a guarantee. Fresher retention and transfer data don't match the promise. The ones who land fast become the sample set for the advice article, and the ones who bail or burn September navigating isolation don't get the BBC call.

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