Plenty of people will talk to you about things you need to watch out for when you’re at college—tips to help you study and manage your time well, advice not to let your car turn into your dorm floor’s free taxi service, and even more shows of well-meaning. Everyone is ready and willing to share stories with you about how they tackled college and survived, but very few people that I’ve talked to have ever mentioned the process of coming back home after a year at college. It’s as if we get so caught up in the idea and ordeal of college itself, that we completely forget the fact that college does, in fact, end. It’s like having an awesome, intense workout—and then just stopping. No cool-down, no transition from an insane amount of activity to almost no activity.
Making that kind of shift can be a little tricky and more than a little harmful if you’re not ready for it. Something does come after those two stressful yet formative semesters you just got through, and whether it’s just a few months at home till the next semester or graduation, the transition out of the college setting is something that should be talked about.
One of the biggest issues with this shift is the sheer mentality of being home versus being at college. Though it may not show while you’re relaxed at home, you have matured a lot during the past year on campus. You’ve been doing your own laundry, directly deciding what and how much you eat, and calling the shots on how much sleep you get—provided you get any at all between late-night hangouts and study sessions, that is. The trouble is, your family hasn’t seen any of that growth of yours, beyond what you’ve talked about during phone and Skype calls.
Their mental image of you is still mostly based on that 17-18-year-old nervous mess that they dropped off on campus last September. Because of that, they’ll probably tend to treat you as if you haven’t just been surviving largely on your own for the past nine months, and it can seem a little tough to justify doing household chores again after that much dorm life—especially since there’s that one corner of your mind griping about how they got by just fine without you for almost a year. And then there’s the issue of curfew. I mean, how can an 11pm curfew even come close to sounding reasonable when for the past two semesters, getting to bed at 1:30am is being responsible?
Even with that and the fact that you are more of an adult now than ever, it’s still important to remember that this just means you should be able to respect your parents even more as individual adults now. It is still their house, after all. When you get your own place, you can ask them to respect your space the way they ask you to respect theirs. On the other hand, you absolutely have the right to discuss with your parents how they should give you the chance to show them how you’ve grown and can function more on your own now. Odds are that they’ll see what you’re talking about.
