When I was in high school, my older friends always tried to explain to me that once you go to college, summers at home aren't the same. At the time, I never understood what they meant. Now, I see that there are a few reasons why summers in college feel incredibly different.
1. Your group of high school friends has changed.
Once you return from college, the number of people you still see from high school diminishes significantly. Being away for school truly demonstrates what friends were an active part of your life, because these are the people you see when you return in the summer. For all those people you were kind of close to high school, you don't reach out to them anymore; they have their own lives going on now too.
2. You spend time visiting college friends.
When the only people you still see from high school are you closest friends, there is time to reach out to the friends you made in college. You spent your entire year with these people, and you don't want to stop your friendship for three months of the year just because summer rolls around. Instead, you try to reach out and possibly visit in order to keep the friendship engaged throughout the time away.
3. You actually want to work.
We all need money, badly. Working in the summer may not be the first thing you want to do, but the money is worth it. You want to rack up the hours, and the paychecks, before you head back to school in the fall.
4. It is strange having parents around again.
After spending an entire year coming and going as you please, with no curfew and few rules, it is difficult coming home and living under your parents roof again. Although they may lighten the rules they once had, it can be hard to remember that for summer break, you have parents to answer to again. Instead of coming and going as please, you might have to shout out where you are going and when you will be home. Because even though you spent the entire year by yourself, your parents still worry about you.
5. You have to share with your siblings again.
Whether this is a bathroom, the remote, or food in the fridge, you are reminded of the struggle of sharing a space with your siblings and the difficulties that sometimes come with this.
6. The places you used to hang out aren't quite the same.
Even if it was your favorite coffee shop in high school, coming back home to it isn't the same. You are either wanting to share it with someone new, or comparing it to all the new places you frequently inhabit. It can still be your favorite, it just doesn't feel the same when you go back after being gone for so long
7. Your bedroom doesn't feel lived in.
Whether this is because you still haven't unpacked from school or because you just weren't feeling motivated to redecorate, your room doesn't have the same energy it once did. Instead of your nicely decorated room at school, your room at home is just an eclectic collection of things from your childhood.
8. You are not accustomed to the lack of young people everywhere.
While at college, it is easy to forget that other age demographics exist. In a college town, you are surrounded by students the same age as you and it feels entirely normal. But when you are home, you are reminded that young people do not dominate the worlds population. Instead, there are children and adults and elderly people everywhere, not just students.
9. You wish you could be experiencing summer in your college town.
Although you are glad to be home for the summer, you still feel like you are missing out by not seeing your college town in the summer months. There are so many things that happen there in the summer that you wanted to experience, and it is a bit of bummer that you will have to wait to try them until you spend your summer break there instead.
10. You actually want to go back to school.
This is probably the biggest difference about summers in college—you can't wait to go back to school. In high school, no matter how bored I was, I never wanted to go back to school. But it is entirely different in college. You want to go back to school and the new life you built there. Rather than dreading the first day of school, you are actually looking forward to it.
