Over here we have societies in College and Uni. They're like clubs that you can join and vary quite a bit depending on what you want to do. For example you'd have guitar soc, networking (IT) soc, banter soc (just for the bants), religious societies, kayaking soc, etc etc. I'm not sure how it works over there but I'd say they'd have something similar. Anyway, my advice is join as many as you can to fill your spare time. It's a great way to meet people and you're all doing something you mutually enjoy so you'd have stuff to talk about and things to do.

Also, this was a biggie for us, suggest and start a private group Facebook page for your course or even just a module. You find yourself chatting to people more online and that seeds through to real life, you can have the banter and you can help each other out with sharing lecture notes, important bits of the course and just keeping everyone on the same level.