Don’t Wait Until Your Senior Year To Visit Your Best Friends At College

​Don’t Wait Until Your Senior Year To Visit Your Best Friends At College

Start tracking the flight prices NOW or fill up your tank with gas and hit the road!

Grace Gilbert
Grace Gilbert Apr 30, 2019
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Upon high school graduation, my best friends and I immediately crafted elaborate plans about how we would visit each other in college. While I trusted our relationships and was sure we would all still want to visit each other, I felt it might be logistically far fetched. As we lived out our first weeks of college, we quickly realized that this whole being apart thing was just not going to work for us. We started to put those plans in motion for visiting each other.

I just want to say that I'm not suggesting that everyone should do this or has the financial means to etc, but if you can, fight for it and make it happen! Visiting my friends at their respective colleges as well as having them visit me has been one of the highlights of my college career.

To be fair, none of us made it to visit each other during the school year of Freshman year. With far-flung colleges and everyone adjusting to their new normal, this is expected. But that summer, we pulled off the trip of a lifetime. Two of my best girls were studying abroad with Florida State University for a full calendar year which meant they would be in Italy for the full summer. Three of my other besties and I popped in "The Lizzie McGuire Movie" and with a whole lot of work and lots of support from our parents planned our grand adventure to go see them. After experiencing their life across the pond, the respect I had for their full year abroad was even greater than it had been before.

That trip was amazing, but I was glad to have them only five hours away at FSU this fall. This fall, I visited them at FSU and they visited me in February at Bama. Over my spring break, I visited my best friend at Udel and my Appalachian State mountaineer bestie just recently spent Easter weekend with me at Bama.

Aside from these visits providing me with memories to last a lifetime, and a plethora of new inside jokes, I love now being able to picture these people who hold such a place in my heart living their little college lives. I know their coffee shops and now they know mine. I know their roommates and they know mine. I've seen the rooms. They are able to picture a lot more of what my life is like at Bama. They've eaten Fried Friday at my sorority house and tried our famous sweet tea to get a taste of the Southern fried food culture. Now they understand my Freshman fifteen struggle. As I'm talking to them on the phone now from the porch of my sorority house that they've stood on, and I say I'm going to Buffalo Phil's for dinner and Rounders at night, they know exactly what I'm talking about since they've experienced it for themselves. Why would you wait til Senior year to experience those things? Even though visiting as Seniors is better than nothing, at that point how much longer are you picturing your friend living their life at school? How many more lattes at that their coffee shop will they even drink before graduation?

In addition to being able to connect to them and picture them, visiting each other shows us how special and important that quality time is. Before we part ways, we are always planning the next visit.

The fact that we have done the visit and know we are capable of it with driving or flying that makes doing another trip seem like it's easy. It's been so special integrating each other into our college memories and having those worlds collide.

Hopefully, I've convinced you to make these trips happen. Here is my advice for how to get it done: pick a date in advance that works and get your work done ahead of time! If you want it badly enough, a couple of extra hours in the library a few days before the trip won't kill ya! I promise it'll be worth it.

Plus, if you really want your friends to visit you and they have work just let them know that being together is all you need and they're welcome to do homework before going out! Also, be sure that you are totally available to visit them.

Maybe think twice about visiting that weekend if you have a date party the night before you're supposed to leave. The sooner you visit the sooner you'll get a glimpse into their new life, make memories together that are priceless and get motivated to plan even more fun things together! Since we are now semi-adults, it's time to start planning like we are!

Grace Gilbert
Grace Gilbert Apr 30, 2019
At The University of Alabama

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10 Ways College Is 100% NOTHING Like High School

Once-a-day showers go to dry shampoo for four days straight.

Emmie Pombo
Emmie Pombo Feb 11, 2018
101111
views

As a college freshman well into their second semester, it has officially occurred to me just how different, and often times better, college is compared to its predecessor, high school.

Here are just 10 ways the two could not be MORE different:

1. How you sleep

You'll go from waking up three hours before school to three minutes before class

2. How you hygiene

Once-a-day showers develop into dry shampoo for four days straight.

3. How you eat

Pizza goes from a once-in-a-while treat to an everyday food group.

4. How you socialize

You'll go from being nice to everyone to disliking people for no reason.

5. How much effort you put into your appearance

High school contour was on fleek and now there's somehow mascara on your forehead.

6. How you nap

Naps go from two hours to 10 minutes.

7. How you operate heavy machinery

Driving goes from 10 and 2 with perfectly lined up mirrors to driving with your knees and eating a taco.

8. Your classmates

High school classes are with all of your friends and college classes have strangers in them almost every day.

9. The people teaching you things

High school teachers are scary and mean, while college professors become your friends.

10. Textbooks

High school textbooks are provided where college textbooks need to be bought with another student loan.

Cover Image Credit: Instargram//Madsbythesea
Emmie Pombo
Emmie Pombo Feb 11, 2018
At Albany, NY

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I'm About To Burst, Laughing At The People Who Thought My Pregnancy Meant I Had To Drop Out Of College

I get stared at in the halls and asked if I am going to drop out. Here are ways being a pregnant student has changed my college experience.

Hannah Rose Mitchell
Hannah Rose Mitchell Jun 10, 2019
1414
views

I have been pregnant the entire time that I have been in graduate school. It was not how I planned to experience grad school, but it has opened my eyes to a whole new perspective and will give me a lovely son (seriously, any second now). There are certain things that I did not realize about being a pregnant student until I experienced it, and maybe my experiences can help better prepare other women, or give them something to relate to since pregnant students are such a rare breed.

As a grad student and a 25-year-old, I am around the average age to have my first child in America. I am not dependent on my parents and the world does not treat me like a child anymore.

However, since I decided to pursue my master's degree, I feel that people are not used to seeing pregnant and student in the same sentence without gasping.

When I first told my father, his first reaction was to ask me if I was to going to drop out.

This became a recurrent reaction from my family and friends (which my boyfriend who is also a student was never asked once). I did not expect the hesitant reactions and it made me feel shameful to be a pregnant student. As my expecting belly grew I always noticed that people on campus would stare at my stomach.

As I walked past, their eyes followed my belly like I had a giant red felt "A" on my chest.

None of my classmates are pregnant and thinking back, I can't remember ever seeing a pregnant woman in all of my five years of college. Since none of my classmates were pregnant, I felt like I had no one to relate to. There are a lot of things that pregnancy effects, besides the baby in the tummy part. I could not go out and get drinks with my classmates and bond with them the way that they were all doing. I could not relate to them fashionably because maternity clothes are heinous. I also feel like pregnancy put up a barrier because I would have a baby eventually and will always be busy, so why bother?

Pregnancy side effects would sometimes take a toll on my school work. In the first trimester, I could barely get out of bed because I was so tired. I could easily have slept 14 hours straight and being a working student did not help. I would seep through some of my classes and had to take the hit to my attendance points. I also have "pregnancy brain." Pregnancy brain is a real thing and is not well known enough. My mind can be so scattered that I forget my friend's names while I am speaking to them. I think it is October when it is March. Pregnancy brain has made me forget that I even go to school or that I work in twenty minutes. I missed due dates or completely misread instructions on assignments. For someone who needs A's on every assignment to function, it hurt because I would never make that mistake otherwise.

There are also benefits to being a pregnant student. I am never hungover and I have never been tempted to ditch a night class for a drinking holiday.

Pregnancy has allowed me to prioritize my school work and ignore the college lifestyle.

Before I knew I was pregnant, I went with my roommates to bars in Chicago's Lincoln Park. I feel so happy knowing getting wasted from $3 shots on a Wednesday is behind me. I now truly have nothing better to do at night than complete my homework.

Another benefit is that you sometimes get special treatment. The special treatment that pregnant women get is awesome. It is my favorite part and sometimes makes me wish I could be pregnant forever. People feel obligated to wait on me hand and foot. If I drop something, people rush to pick it up. It is completely not necessary but I get to feel like a princess for a day (or 280 days). Even though I was singled out for being the only pregnant woman, I was always treated especially nicely by students and professors.

Regardless of my friends and family expecting me to drop out, I am doing phenomenal in grad school. I have received A's in every class and have loved all of my classes. Being a pregnant student can be tough, but it is totally doable. If you find yourself to be a pregnant student, don't feel discouraged. It is not ruining your college experience but allowing you to do college differently.

Hannah Rose Mitchell
Hannah Rose Mitchell Jun 10, 2019
At DePaul University

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