Placing hand on chest when avoiding handshakes

Assalamu alaikum! I embraced Islam at 13 and I'm 19 now (hands down the greatest choice I ever made!!!). In university, handshakes when meeting new folks are super common since the campus is so big, and I rarely got any tips on handling this stuff. Putting my hand on my chest to skip shaking hands with sisters works like 50% of the time (I do it before they even go for a handshake). The other half I usually end up explaining, which just feels awkward to me. Sometimes the pressure in the moment is so much and I'm really trying my best? Or maybe I'm just overthinking it. Any advice or little tricks you all use? I take this seriously because when I get married inshaAllah, I'd want my wife to do the same, and I really wanna walk the talk myself, and just handle it better. Honestly, even before I reverted, middle school handshakes bothered me, cause you never know what folks' hands touched.