A year ago last week I was graduating high school. I remember sitting in my chair during the ceremony and I couldn't focus on the speeches or words being said. Most of the hour or so of graduation I spent worrying about leaving a small suburban town I grew up in, and the changes that will happen. After finishing my freshmen year of college, I found the answers to all of my fears on that day.
1. College is better than high school ever was.
The memories you made will be with you forever: the late night drives to the diner, Friday night football games, hilarious lab partners and nights you stayed out way too late with your best friends. But it sucked too. The stress of earning honors, the constant unnecessary drama and trying to be a well-rounded person is a lot. It's different when you go away to school. You won't have the pressure from the superiors in your life. The drama seems to disappear because everyone is finally being true to themselves and no one cares for negative people. You will be in charge of what you can and cannot handle, not the school. They said high school is the best four years of your life, but I disagree, the best four years are right around the corner.
2. Things will be difficult, but you will get through it, it's just a patch.
I'm not going to lie and say that college is smooth sailing. There will be weeks when your grades aren't the best. Days when life isn't great and you're homesick. Life happens. You get better via taking a mental day or the time to f*ck it. Maybe you even go on a spontaneous trip to visit your best friend at a different university. You're going to survive those ups and downs building you up to be a stronger person.
3. Yes, you will change, let it happen.
No one wants who they are to change. It means learning how to love the person you have already come to love over the years. However, change is good and being new college it's inevitable. No one will know the person you were in high school it doesn't define you, so don't be afraid to let yourself become who you want to be. With independence, you will be more determined and responsible. New friends will change the way you look at relationships, the way you treat people and the way you allow them to treat you. And while you will change you will always be yourself.
4. Your family and hometown will always be there for you.
People will constantly ask your parents how you're doing and vice versa. You find yourself defending your hometown or state when someone makes fun of it (especially N.J.). The sweet taste of independence will sometimes cause you to forget to call home, but you will exchange texts with your parents daily even when they're overseas. Mom is the first person you call when you're even mildly sick or need help. The place you grew up in, the people who raised you want you to succeed they never forget about you, and you never forget about them.
5. But, you will lose contact with high school friends, and you're OK, maybe even better for it.
Sometimes things don't work out in the end. Looking up and around at everyone during graduation, you see the people you have grown up with, who you have sat next to in classes for 12 years. You say, "we'll keep in touch!" but some of your closest friends will become people you occasionally see pictures of on Instagram. No one wants to lose friends but honestly, you will be too busy to keep in touch with everyone. Some will text you a few days a week and make plans with you for when you come back for break. They're the friends that are in it for the long run. Not every relationship since kindergarten is meant to be. People grow apart, they change and going away helps you realize who is important to you.
6. You do make friends, I promise, and they're for life.
You're afraid that you will not be able to meet new people and make new friends. But you will go on a pre-fall, move in early and some of your closest friends will be people you meet within the first three hours of stepping foot on campus. The girls down the hall are your closest friends and your roommates next year. Members of clubs you join will later become the people you serenade "Mr. Brightside" by The Killers to at 1 a.m. A bond forms when you meet someone who shares a common hatred for the Patriots, but you also keep that common enemy close to your heart. A year later now back home, you can't imagine not having these people to talk to every day. I don't know how you have managed without your new best friends for the past 18 years of my life. You make friends, and never want to let go of them.
7. Don't regret where you committed because it's now a place you call home.
May 1 rolled around, and you were worried that made the wrong decision on where to attend school for the next four years. You went in thinking about transferring because it honestly wasn't your top choice. All that disappears because there's no other place you could ever see yourself at. You find yourself referring to the university as home and wanting to go back after only a few days back in your hometown. The section in your notifications tells you how long it takes you to go back, so you contemplate jumping in your car, picking your friends up and driving back. You can never replace the feeling you get when a person or place becomes so much more.
So looking back there really was no need for the nervousness and questioning. Freshmen year is everything you could have asked for. My advice to those graduating or just graduated: college, moving away, starting a new chapter will be different but don’t stress out about it. Everyone finds their group, their path, their selves and their place wherever they end up.
