There may be a lot of versions of this online, but here's my personal list of advice I'd give to graduating seniors. These are things I learned throughout my freshman year all on my own. I hope this list will help you mentally prepare for and then go through your first year of college as successfully as possible.
1. You can be “done” with your high school and/or hometown, but that doesn't mean you won’t miss them.
I thought I was so ready to leave where I came from. I was done with the way that people acted in my school and just over being in high school altogether. I heard a lot of older people continually warn that high school was going to be one of the easiest times of our lives, and I wish I would’ve listened a little better. I reached a point where I felt too big for my school and town and the people there. I wish I would’ve focused a little less on judging the people I thought I was sick of because they didn’t like or agree with everything that I did.
Because when you go to college, you will miss those things you thought you were sick of, even if only for a moment. That’s because those places and people you thought you grew out of were familiar. You’re starting a new chapter in your life, so of course, everything is new and unfamiliar. It takes a while to get used to your new surroundings. My advice is to take a step back now from all your thoughts on moving on, and enjoy being where you are. Spend your summer appreciating the people and places you’ve grown up with, because in the fall, basically everything changes.
2. Friendships take more work.
Because everything is new, including the people, you have to make new friends. The thing to realize with making friends in college, though, is that it’s not as easy as it was in high school. There, you formed friendships with people because you saw them five days a week for approximately twelve years. Don’t get me wrong, some of those childhood friendships will continue to be the most important in your life. But some of them won’t. You’ll figure that out quickly once you stop seeing them face to face.
I know I was excited to make more friends who really “got” me, who would be as important as the handful from home. And then I was disappointed when all of the people I met didn’t instantly become my best friends. Remember that thing I was just saying about having years and years to form friendships in high school? That isn’t a thing in college. There are only four years, and the semesters are shorter. The classes are once or twice a week, typically. The people in those classes might chat with you, but it takes a lot of effort to hang out more than once and thus become good friends. It took my roommates and I almost two months to become best friends. So don’t get discouraged if making good friends seems difficult at first. You have to keep initiating outings or inviting yourself along until it becomes a regular thing. All the work will be worth it; making friends at college is like forming a new little family to do life with.
3. Your experience isn’t going to be exactly like everyone else’s.
When I started college, I was super homesick. It was to the extreme where I developed anxiety and what I refer to as being overly emotional. I think this was caused by a few different things, like the fact that I'm an introvert and very close with my family, my mom especially, and they were suddenly hundreds of miles away from me for the first time. But the circumstances are different for a lot of people. Others do better with being away from home and embracing change. Those people seemed to love college right off the bat. What took me the better part of the school year to realize is that both experiences are fine. Both can be accepted as normal. You really don’t need to compare yourself to others in this situation. Everyone has a different point they’re transitioning from and a different point they’re transitioning to.
4. High school isn’t the equivalent of college.
This idea struck me as a great explanation for why I personally struggled to adjust to college. High school isn’t the equivalent of college because college involves making a new home for yourself. College isn’t just the new institution you’re learning at, it’s the place you start building a life on your own. You get a dorm or an apartment and learn how to cook and clean and manage things like that. You learn how to live with people who aren’t your family, which involves different methods of communication and sharing and consideration than ones you’ve probably used before. And though you are making a new home for yourself, people deal with the idea of home differently. Some start calling their dorm or apartment home immediately. Some people have no problem giving that title to a building that doesn’t also house their immediate family or pets. Or maybe they believe they can have two homes. All I know is that for me, it took me a while to accept that my apartment was a version of home to me because I thought of that term as a sacred word only to be used to describe the farmhouse I grew up in. I think the idea of college becoming the place where you start basing your life can be one of the most overwhelming parts about transitioning to college in general. Just give this some thought beforehand. Allow yourself to feel whatever the idea of a new home makes you feel, and then allow those feeling to change over time.
5. Learn what you're passionate about.
6. A very small portion of learning happens inside the classroom.
Here, I’m not only talking about the knowledge gained of your major outside the classroom through professional experiences like internships, jobs or meeting a professional in your field. The knowledge gained about life in general while in college is also too vast for just a classroom.
Like I already said, you learn about cooperating with other people, be it the ones you live with as well as the ones you work with. You learn about balancing your own budget and how many hours of sleep you can survive with. You learn how to feed yourself and manage your time. You also learn how to keep relationships going over distance and how to form new relationships with people you meet there. It may be said too often, but it really is true that being an adult means having a to-do list that's never ending, from homework to social gatherings to housekeeping. There's a lot you have to figure out on your own in a short period of time. Prepare yourself now by realizing that there's a lot of things you don't know. When it comes time to be on your own, treat every new “real life” first as a lesson just as important, if not more, than those during your classes.
7. A LOT happens in a year.
You personally go through a lot too. Like me, you could go from being incredibly homesick for the small town and big house you grew up into missing your apartment and the city your college is in as soon as you head home for the summer. You could also go from knowing no one to having a whole group of friends that you’re desperately going to miss over the summer too. Along the way you figure out what kind of adult you are, when and how to pay your bills, what kind of job(s) you wouldn’t mind working, how you’re going to feed yourself for a week. You really do grow as a person. So look forward to seeing who you are in a year, chances are you'll be really proud of yourself.
---
College is great. Be excited, but don’t rush through all your last moments before college with friends and family, because nothing is ever going to be the same as it is now, not completely. Know that for better or worse, you became who you are where you are, surrounded by the people there. Know that you’ll always have that, even as you do get to move forward with your future. Don’t judge yourself harshly for any emotion you feel during this journey; you’re never the only one. And there’s always something you can do (see this post). When you finally get settled at your new school, be patient with friendships, and then take advantage of the adventures you can have together. On top of surrounding yourself with good people, pursue what you love academically. Take advantage of every opportunity to push yourself further career-wise. Try your best to balance the fun times and the serious work. Be prepared for things to fly by even faster than high school and embrace it. Like everything in life, college only happens once. Make the best of it.
