College has been a roller coaster for me when it comes to making friends. I went from having an entire floor of girls I considered my "friends" freshman year, to a smaller friend group sophomore year, to only having maybe three friends my junior year. Struggling to hold onto friends throughout college has been really hard on my mental health, yet I know that I'm not the only one who has gone through this. I'm lucky enough to have a couple friends who I've known all throughout my college career (shoutout to them - they're absolutely amazing), but when it comes down to it, I didn't meet some of my best friends until my senior year, and that's okay.

Thanks to the organizations I'm apart of, my classes, and my job, I now have the friends I searched my entire college career for. These friends are there for me during the good times and the bad. They're laughing with me as we drunkenly stumble home, sending me goofy Snapchats throughout the day in our snap group, and constantly telling me the craziest jokes. But they're also right there with me when life gets hard, listening to my constant rants, giving me the best advice, and cheering me up. This is absolutely amazing and I'm so blessed to have such wonderful friends. Everywhere I go, I feel like I have someone to turn to, which is something I can't always say I've felt.

To any girl who feels like she'll never find her college friend group - I used to be you. I can't even begin to count the number of weekends I've spent alone in my room because I didn't have anyone to hang out with. There were more time than I'd like to admit that the "friends" I had at that time made plans together and didn't invite me. I had people who claimed to be my friend come up with countless excuses not to spend time with me. This hurt me more than I'll ever really admit and had me wondering why I was meant to be the girl who just didn't have friends.

Senior year was a turn around for me and I'll be forever grateful for that. Although it's very bittersweet that in a few months I'll be leaving all of the people I developed such amazing friendships with, I'm still so thankful to have finally met my people and have the opportunity to spend my last semester with people who make me feel valued and important. I know that even though our friendships will have to stand the test of distance, whenever I decide to visit campus again for a football game, dinner in my old dining hall, or night out at my favorite college bar, I'll have an entire group of friends ready to go.

My biggest piece of advice to the girl who feels like she'll never make friends in college is to just keep going on with your life. In the right time, they will come. Don't completely shut yourself off from the world and give up. Strike up conversation with the nice girl in your classes. Continue to stay involved on campus. Get to know your coworkers better. There are potential friendships everywhere - as long as you don't give up on the possibility of them, I know you'll find them.

You may feel like a failure for being the "only" freshman, sophomore, junior, or senior even who hasn't quite found her tribe yet, and I'm here to remind you that you certainly aren't. It's better to have to wait awhile for true friendships than to settle for people who don't treat you like you deserve to be treated. Don't be so hard on yourself. You are worthy of friends who treat you right.