1. Your family
This may seem obvious. Before moving out, I’m sure you are more than excited to get away from your family. But after being away from them for some time, you not only start to miss them, but you miss the things they did that drove you crazy when you lived at home. I know it sounds cliché, but it’s true. The things you hated most about your family is what you come to miss when you are away from them for too long. For example, in high school, I got so annoyed every time my grandmother would call me on the phone to tell me that dinner was ready. Now, in college, on a diet of mass-produced Sodexo products, I would give anything to get that call from my grandmother alerting me of a hot, home-cooked meal waiting for me on the kitchen table.
2. Your friends
This also may seem obvious. The close friends that you see every day in high school become so familiar to you that it may make you uneasy to think that soon enough, you will see these people very rarely, or maybe not ever again. My senior year, I had every single class with my best friend. And now that I’m in college, I haven’t seen her in almost 10 months. We still talk very frequently, but I feel her physical absence in my day-to-day life very intensely. I miss the days where I spent several hours right by her side, talking face-to-face rather than via text, like we do now. I realize now that I took for granted how much time I got to spend with her.
3. Your pets
Hopefully, this one applies to most of you. Since I am a self-proclaimed cat lady and owner of three little bundles of love, I miss my cats very much. When I lived at home, I was so accustomed to seeing, playing with, petting, and cuddling with my cats every day, that nothing could have prepared me for not seeing them for months on end while I am away at college. Although I make my mother put them on the phone so that I can coo to them and assure them that I’m still alive and will be coming home soon, nothing can replace seeing them in person.
4. Real food
Aforementioned, “real food,” AKA not college food, is one of the things that college students miss most while away at school. Although the college food is not bad, your body needs a break from it once in a while. Nothing will make you miss boxed macaroni and cheese or your hometown favorite restaurant more than months of mass-produced, Sodexo college food. Even the readily available fast food off campus, such as McDonalds, is more often than not a treat to a college student.
5. Your own bed
Again, pretty juvenile. While college beds are notorious for being uncomfortable, they are also very small. Going from a full-size bed at home to a specialty college-sized bed was an adjustment that took many accidental falls onto the floor in the middle of the night to get accustomed to. The lack of wiggle room makes you miss the all-too-familiar bed waiting for you at home. Also, you sleep so much better in your own bed than in your college bed, whether it be from your roommate snoring or stress taking a toll on your body. Going home is the time to relax in your own bed and catch up on some beauty sleep!
6. Your hometown
Although it may also seem obvious, everyone misses their hometown when they go away to school. When moving to an unfamiliar place, you realize that knowing every road and place in town was something you took for granted. Not knowing the area in which you go to college can be intimidating and may make you feel out of place, especially for those who go to college far away from home. Although it is exciting to be in a totally new environment, it can make you miss the comfort and familiarity of where you are from. There is something comforting about going home and driving through the town you know so well, where you can point out where your childhood best friend lived, or where you went on your first date without even having to think about it. Also, going back to your hometown means going to your favorite places, whether it be a local lake, the diner, or a beautiful hiking trail.
7. Driving
At most colleges, freshmen are not allowed to have their cars on campus, in an effort to encourage freshmen to stay on campus and make friends rather than going home every weekend. Taking away an easy escape forces us first-year students to get comfortable at our college, and although a good idea, it makes us miss the cars we may have at home, and just driving in general.
Although it may seem juvenile to miss something as common as driving a car, for college freshmen, we may not drive for months on end. Because driving is such an everyday thing, going without doing it for so long makes us miss what we once took for granted. One of the best parts about going home is getting to drive again!
8. Privacy
In college, privacy can be hard to come by. Especially if you have never shared a room with someone before, adjusting to living with a stranger can be difficult. No matter how great your roommate may be, everyone needs alone time once in a while. The little privacy you may get in college when your roommate is in class or otherwise busy is nothing compared to the privacy you can get in your own room at home. Living in the constant presence of another person, no matter how great of friends you may be, can easily make you miss having your own space.
9. High school sports
For those of us who were involved in some sort of team sport or other activity in high school, missing your soccer team or cheerleading squad is an intense feeling you may not have been prepared for. While it was so familiar and consistent in high school, now your long-term separation from an activity you loved so much can really take a toll, physically and emotionally. Whether you chose not to continue your sport in college, or you were unable to, you definitely miss your teammates, your coaches, the events involved, such as games or competitions, and the consistent physical activity. The memories that you created doing these things in high school can bring you bittersweet pangs of emotion while in college. Remembering the good times can make you sad, because you miss something so central to your high school life that is now absence from your busy college life.
10. The little comforts of home
It is very true that you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone. When you first go away to college, you realize that you took for granted all the little comforts of home, whether it be refrigerated water and ice available at all times (my roommate and I live without a fridge), a towel to dry your hands on after washing your hands (my dorm has air driers only), or two-ply, the simple pleasures you have become so accustomed to are suddenly gone. At home, you don’t have to wear shower shoes when you take a shower, or walk across campus in the snow to get breakfast, and the daily struggles of a college student can make us miss comfortable home life. Being away at college makes us college students really appreciate the little things that we never really thought much of before, like having your favorite ice cream available in the freezer, laying on your couch at night under your favorite blanket, or the foam soap your mom buys for the bathroom. And suddenly you wonder why you were so eager to move out!
