The Common Room. A place we all found a little scary as we started the new adventure of college. On day one of college, it embodied the things most of us worried about before we got to where we were going. It was a cold, new space where you would meet a bunch of strangers and prayed that you would become friends with at least some of them and that you didn’t absolutely despise the rest.

Then, when your family left on move-in day and you finally mustered up the courage to walk down the hall and meet the new group people you were living with, all the fear seemed to melt away because the second you saw them, you knew they were in the exact same spot. And that night you got to know them and it seemed to get better. You actually enjoyed yourself and the new people you met which made you feel so much better about the next chapter of life you just kicked off.

As the week progressed, you got to know them because you all stayed up late and asked each other’s names (at least four times) in between conversations that ranged from silly and absolutely hysterical to deep and super serious while all the worries seemed to disappear, because you had someone there to struggle through the new stuff with you. You had people to ask questions to, walk to class with, go to dinner with and even attempt to get something productive done with (although I think we are all starting to see that “being productive together” is a lot harder then we all assumed).

I don’t know about everyone else, but my common room, and more specifically, the people in it, are ones that made this whole college thing a lot easier so far. The first week has been stressful no doubt, I mean we all have 80,000 meetings to go to and paperwork to fill out, not to mention the constant workload from classes, but regardless of how much we have to do we manage to get it done and still help each other out. So, a week later, I no longer see the common room as cold. I see it as my new family room, a place to be together with my dorm family and make great memories. In fact, I’m already finding it hard to remember my life without it or them.