Dear high school seniors,

This is it, the moment you have all been waiting for. You have graduated and will be off to college in less than four short months. You are finally done with the high school, the drama, living with your parents, seven-hour school days, timed writings, AP classes, college applications, and anything else that comes with the four short years that is high school. While I’m sure you are excited and anxious to get off to school, as you should be, I have some advice for you.

First of all, enjoy your last few months at home. It is so easy to look forward to college and forget about all of the great things home has to offer you. It is expected and inevitable, but do your best to be obsessed with being home. Fall in love with your friends all over again, and spend too much time doing the things that you won’t be able to do when you are no longer home.

After being at college a few months, you will become a visitor to your own home. It will become the place you come for breaks, summer, etc., and the place you will always be welcomed. If things go as expected, which they won’t always, these breaks will be your only time at home. Your dorm, sorority or fraternity house, apartment, or wherever you end up living in the next few years, will become home. You will start to call it home after a long day at school, you will look forward to getting in your twin-sized bed at the end of the day.

Enjoy your OG home -- eat as many meals that your mom is willing to cook for you, pay extra attention to sunsets or sunrises from your bedroom, play with your dogs, hang out with your siblings, and soak up as much time with your friends that you possibly can.

When you get to school, it is easy to feel overwhelmed, distracted, anxious, lonely, excited- basically all emotions. It’s awesome and terrifying. Cry when your parents leave and don’t say no when your roommate, whom you’ve never talked to beyond a few Facebook messages, asks you to go to the dining hall. Talk to everyone you meet.

Enjoy your freshman year to the fullest, and take advantage of every opportunity you receive. Join 100 clubs, and don’t worry if you think you will have time for them or not; you can always drop some.

Don’t do things based on what other people will think. It’s college and, chances are, everyone is more worried about themselves than what you are doing. Go for walks at night and explore your campus. Go to parties on Tuesday nights even if you have an 8 a.m. the next morning. It won’t kill you and those are usually the best parties, anyway.

Be safe when you go out, and take your school work seriously from the first day until the last day. Try your best not to procrastinate, but don’t stay up all night studying for a quiz that’s only two percent of your grade.

My biggest advice of all is to stay the entire school year. This may come as a surprise, something obvious to anyone going away to college. Why wouldn’t I stay the entire four years, let alone the first year? First semester of college is one of the hardest -- you go in to it thinking it’s going to be the best time of your life and, sometimes, it will be. But you can’t make lifelong friends in a day, or even a week.

You will get lonely and sad, and probably hate where you are at least once, but if I can do it you most definitely can too. It may mean crying some nights and calling your parents at 4 a.m., do it. I promise you it gets better, it gets easier, and eventually it feels like home. If you’re still not in love with your school after the first year then transfer, but do not leave before the year is over. You will make great friends (so much can change in a semester), immerse yourself in your schoolwork, and explore.

Try to love every part of your freshman year. It will be hard, don’t get me wrong. There will be tears, laughter, fights, drama, and lots of happiness and love. And then before you know it, literally in nine short months, it is over.

All of the nights you worried about tests, missed friends from home, spent in bed watching Netflix, got too drunk to remember, all of it will be over in no time. You will be sitting at your last dining hall meal, taking the elevator up to your room for the last time, throwing away your shower shoes, all of it will be over and gone and you won’t even know where the time went.

So, seniors, enjoy your last few months at home, and have the best summer of your lives. After all, it’s probably the last time you will be able to get away with going three whole months without school, a job, an internship, or something adult-like getting in the way of your summer tan.

When it is time to go to school, and your tan lines start to fade, enjoy those moments to the fullest. It will be hard, but be proud of yourselves when you get through it. Enjoy the easy fun times as much as possible. It will be over before you know it.

Xo,

A jealous sophomore