College is great. It’s finally time to get away from home and be independent. You learn new things, make new friends, and learn a lot about yourself. But let’s be real: there are some things that we all miss about home.

1. Free laundry

Doing laundry on campus gets expensive. You have to make sure you have enough money to wash the pile of laundry you’ve been ignoring, carry it all through the building to the laundry room, and hope that there’s a machine open. It’s an ordeal, and it really makes you miss the days of washing your clothes in a machine without a money slot.

2. Familiarity

Back home, you knew where things were and you had places to go. In a new city, it’s not as easy to find things to do or places to go. To make things harder, you often don’t know many (or any) people here like you do back home.

3. Family

They drive you crazy, but who else asks if you had a good day and if you’re eating enough and getting enough sleep?

4. Real meals

Home cooked meals are the best! They’re something you don’t fully appreciate until you start college and primarily live off of ramen and that stuff that passes for food in the caf. Also, the variety of food on campus is slim, so you get pretty bored and tired of the same food every day.

5. Pets

Probably the worst thing about living in a dorm is the fact that you can’t bring your pets. Some days all I need is a cuddle with my kitty and some puppy kisses.

6. Space

Being shoved into a tiny dorm room with a stranger along with both of your possessions isn’t easy and definitely takes some getting used to. Dorms offer very little privacy for phone calls, naps, or just some alone time.

7. Free food

At home, if you’re hungry, you can just walk into the kitchen and get a snack. In college, you either have to walk to the caf and buy food or you eat some of the food from your room. Unfortunately, both of these options involve spending money. If you eat food from your room, it also comes with the sad knowledge that you’ll soon have to go out and buy more (ugh).

8. Relaxation

Between classes, homework, clubs, activities, jobs, maybe seeing your friends on the weekend, and a few hours of sleep now and then, that hardly leaves time for anything else. Once you enter college, things go by so fast, and it can be hard to slow things down and find time to just relax.

9. Your own bathroom

Do I really need to talk about this one? One word: privacy.

10. Your car

For many college students, especially freshmen and sophomores, their main means of transportation is at home. It’s suddenly a lot harder to go out and do things, whether that’s exploring a new town or just getting groceries. It’s a definite loss of freedom that can be hard to adjust to.

It can be tough getting used to the changes that college brings on, but there are people all around you missing the same things. Luckily, winter break and weekends at home are just what we need to get our fill of the things we were missing.