No matter how hard you try, your relationships will change in college. With family, with old friends, and with significant others, the way things work is different when you’re away from home and so much more independent. The way you form new relationships will also change, and that’s okay: college is all about change, and the best advice is to embrace it.
Family
1. Parents
You may become closer with your parents, or you may become more distant with them, but the dynamic will change and you will definitely miss them. You will probably become closer to your mother in a more adult way. You’ll discuss things you didn’t discuss before, but it will bring you closer. You’ll probably face some growing pains with your father, and he won’t exactly approve of all of your decisions, but he’ll still love you.
2. Siblings
You’ll become a bit more distant with your siblings (that is unless you go to college with them). When you come home for holidays, things hopefully won’t be as tense. You’ll do your thing and they’ll do theirs. There’s a bit of a gap for the time being where you know what your younger siblings are going through but they think they’re alone. Let them know you’re there for them, but give them their space. You probably wanted the same thing at their age.
3. Extended Family
You’ll be reminded of your extended family constantly in college through little things that happen. Visit them when you get home for the summer. Set up coffee dates with cousins, send your aunt some flowers, ask your grandparents if they’d like to get breakfast or if you could get it and bring it to them. Family is important, and a strong support system is crucial through these years.
Friends
4. High School Friends
You’ll probably only keep in contact with a few friends from high school, usually your besties. You’re all going to change from who you were in high school though; different schools offer different experiences. Some friends will join sororities, others will go off and do their own thing, but each path leads to a different change in life and experience. When you’re home, you’ll run into old classmates when shopping and it will be mildly awkward because you’ll just smile but neither of you will really acknowledge each other any further than that.
5. New Friends
New friendships form due to the strangest of circumstances sometimes. Rather than just becoming friends out of similar interests and the same classes as what happened in high school, you’ll meet and befriend people in much different ways. I met my boyfriend in my physics class and thought he was a douchey jock guy, and a week later I tried out for an a cappella group and he was one of the judges and I realized how cute he was and he found out I had a “princess voice.” Two of my best friends knew they’d hit it off great because when setting up their bunk beds when they met as just roommates, they helped each other set things up so they would each have adequate space to have comfortable sex in their bunks. The first semester will be a difficult adjustment for many, but you’ll find your besties.
