It is. That said, by far the most useful thing you can do to improve your conversation skills is have lots of conversations with strangers - so keep doing what you are doing and focus on that. A couple of tips to keep in mind

1) don't worry about making every sentence interesting. err on the side of speaking your mind.

2) think about what are some areas of conversation you think are interesting, but not so serious they are inappropriate for casual conversation. Anything pop culture related is great for this.