When I started college, I went to a small private, Catholic college two hours from home. It's very different from Houghton in almost every way. It's about twice the size of Houghton College, it's in the middle of a very small city, and it's a drinking/party school. Of course, none of these things are problems, but it just wasn't the right fit for me. I didn't feel like I belonged there. The first month was great, and I had an amazing group of friends to hang out with. We hung out together all the time and I felt like I didn't have to worry anymore about whether or not I would find people to hang out with. After a month, however, my roommate, our group of friends, and I had a huge falling out. I stopped talking to them and moved out of my room. It was really hard and I felt very alone for a long time afterward. I transferred out of the school after my freshman year, after months of losing friends and not feeling like I belonged.

Obviously, I ended up coming to Houghton for my sophomore year. I felt so much better after coming to a school that definitely fit my needs more successfully. I was so excited for a new experience and to meet new people. I met a great group of friends during my first week. It was a large bunch of people who had all transferred into Houghton at the same time. We hung out all of the time and did everything together. But similar to in my freshman year, falling outs occurred and we eventually ended up spending less and less time together. There was nothing hostile about it. We just drifted apart. Besides, nobody really sticks with their first friends in college, right?

Needless to say, after that, I was starting to feel kind of discouraged. I just wanted to feel comfortable with a steady group of people. I had such a fantastic and solid friend group when I was in high school, and I expected it to be the same way once I got to college. I always heard that your college friends would be the ones you’d stick with forever, and that wasn’t what it seemed like, at least for me. Was college not what I made it out to be? Or was I just doing something wrong?

This is my senior year, and in the beginning of this semester I honestly still didn’t feel like I had a group that I belonged in yet. I would float between different groups, and generally just go wherever I felt even slightly comfortable. But over the past few weeks, I started getting to know other people. I have made some of the best friends during the last half of a semester. I feel open, confident, comfortable, and at peace with myself and others. And of course, there is still always the lingering fear that something will go wrong, that I will lose my friends and have to start the vicious cycle all over again. But for now, I'm happy where I am and will be content to stay there.