When I was all in high school, I felt as though the world was mine. At my high school, in a small town in South Georgia, being involved was much like how students are at Stetson. Everyone played a Varsity or J.V. sport, was in a Club/Student Organization, or was in Band. For me I played in band, served as a senator in the student government association, and was active in the broadcasting department throughout high school. I absolutely loved being heavily involved and also having multiple cliques of friends to hang out with in my time in high school.
One thing that I, as well as most of us at the time, believed was that the friends that we made in high school would be long lasting friends for the rest of my life. Now being in Band definitely gave me a lot of my friends that I am super close with to this day, no matter what point in time that we all met, I still keep in touch with them no matter what happens. Our senior class has moments of outburst within itself but nonetheless, we all are relatively all still talking now. However, only the ones that I was super close with, which is only a handful, check in every so often or message each other on Facebook.
Now seeing as I have already been through college once now, I definitely have a lot that I have learned in the past four years of my life. As stated before, I have a select few friends in high school that I speak to, but my college friends... That's a completely different story.
I've met some of the most interesting, creative, and down-to-earth people I have ever met in my entire life when I was at Valdosta State. While I was at freshman orientation, I met a guy named Graham, and we decided to become freshman year roommates. Along with another couple of people, who I ended up becoming friends through the years also. Over the course of the three years, I met even more interesting and more intriguing people. In my final two years of college, I decided to cheer at the collegiate level, which gave me so much more perspective on life. This past year at College Nationals I had the opportunity to compete for a national title at Daytona Beach, and my team ended up placing third in our division and nation. One could say that being on a cheerleading mat with nineteen other people, beside the beach, outside, in front of a ocean of people brings you together like no other feeling in the world. All of my teammates hold a special place in my heart ever since that day, and I still speak to most of them even though I'm done with competitive cheerleading.
Even though I'm not even a year out from undergrad., I still talk to and keep in touch with a LOT of my friends that I've met. It's like time never stopped from the day we met, and I pray that it never does. Those four years taught me that you get a clean slate, and that everyone is in the same boat in a lot of areas. Everyone is trying to become the best they can be, trying to make friends in a unfamiliar place, and also figure out their career goals in life. In my final year of college I had one of the best years of my life. I had an amazing Graduate Assistant/Mentor, met AMAZING friends through my job in Campus Recreation, and most importantly graduated college. Not only did I gain a lot of experiences in college, I learned the one thing that is most important: these friendships will last forever. Whether you are heavily involved, semi involved, or just a part of one club, the friends that you make in college are there for you until the end. Or as my friend Camille says: "To the ends of the world, and whatever is after that."
