The summers between college are bittersweet. You're happy you're done with those awful finals but mad you won't be back at your home away from home for 4 months. You can't wait to finish your ridiculously hard classes that you thought were going to be easy, but then you also realize that you have $0 to your name and need to semi have your life together. Here are the pros and cons of the upcoming summer:
Pro: Homemade food.
Con: Your mom doesn't make you food when you get home at 2 am.
Nothing will ever beat your mom’s cooking (unless its mozzarella sticks at 1 am). As good as your dining hall food might be, there’s just nothing like a home cooked meal. However, your mom doesn’t work like a dining hall or a food truck so unfortunately, she doesn’t just stand in the kitchen all day waiting for you to order food. So when you get back late you end up attempting to make some terrible meal that you end up eating anyway.
Pro: No more exams.
Con: You need 20 years of experience by the time you graduate.
You finally don’t have to worry about turning in a 15-page paper or studying for an exam for a class you haven’t gone to in 3 weeks. You can finally stop checking your grades online and calculating what grade you need on the final to pass (shout-out to my calc final which I failed…over it...but like not really). With this being said, we have another thing to worry about: internships. It seems that after we graduate we have to have years of experience in a field that we just got a degree in 20 seconds ago…COOL. So the stress of building your resume (still don’t have one…*sighs*..god damn) definitely takes away some of your summer fun.
Pro: No more twin bed.
Con: No one to talk to or laugh with at night.
You can finally sleep in your own bed! No more sleeping on a twin next to a cement wall (kinda sounds like prison). However, your roommate aka your person isn’t there to talk to you at 2 am when you’ve had a bad day or laugh with you when you check your grades. There’s no one in the same room as you to text or tag in funny facebook videos to see the others reaction.
Pro: You get to pet a dog.
Cons: There are no cons to seeing your pets. They make everything better.
One of best part of summers is seeing your pets (sorry mom and dad). You can finally pet dogs whenever you want (remember when I got yelled at for trying to pet a service dog?...good times). But, then you remember how much you love dogs and so when people start asking you what you want to do with your life you seriously start contemplating answering with this picture:
Pro: No more laundry wars.
Con: You still have to do your own laundry.
You finally don’t have to throw bows to do your laundry. No matter how many washers and dryers there are it feels like everyone decides to do laundry at the same time. There were times where I was close to investing in an old school washboard (rock bottom). It's nice to go home and have your own personal washer and dryer, but now that you’re in college you can’t just tell your parents to do your laundry anymore...they know that you must have done laundry at least once (fingers crossed).
Pro: You can leave the drama of the school year behind you.
Con: You have to leave your best friends.
The end of the year can be stressful and tensions can be high with friends as you've spent everyday with them for the past couple of months. The nice thing about going home is that whatever happened at the end of the year you can leave at school and come back with a clean slate. Unforunately, that means that you can’t see your best friends every day. You can’t just bop into each others rooms and talk about what happened the night before or just lay around doing homework (but actually re-watching Gossip Girl). You can try doing this with your dog, but they're less responsive and don't appreciate Gossip Girl as much as your girlfriends do.
Pro: You get to see all of your friends from home.
Con: Basements aren’t the same as house parties.
Fortunately these next four months can be spent with your best friends from home. No matter how close you and your friends from school are there’s a special bond that you have with the people you grew up with. You're best friends with their parents and hang out at their house when they're not even there. With this being said a high school basement party reenacted just isn’t the same as a college party…mainly because it’s your parents house that is actually worth money and boys can’t destroy random pieces of furniture.
Finally..be sure to make the best of your summer.
Go into this summer with a positive mental mindset. You're finally done with finals and you're starting a new adventure. If you’re waitressing and saving money that’s great and if you’re working at a law office to gain some experience that’s great too. Don’t stress too much about your future because you have the rest of your life to make money and get experience. Finally, remember to have fun and appreciate the hometown you grew up in and the people that live in it.
