I walked into Boston University last fall knowing precisely no one. No friends-of-friends, distant relatives, or anyone I’d met online through the class Facebook page (I did not have a Facebook at that time, which is another story for another day). Other than exchanging a few brief texts with my randomly-selected roommates, I knew not one soul, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I grew up on stories of my mother’s college experience, and none of those memories reflected well upon people who went into college with their closest friends by their side. To my mother, these individuals took the easy road to their college transition. One of these girls was her roommate during her freshman year who entered college with her two best friends (who were rooming together by themselves). As opposed to immersing herself in the college experience, this freshman stuck to those who she knew well, missing out on the possibility of a friendship with my mom and, likely, many others. While there is nothing wrong with maintaining strong relationships during the transition from high school to college, attending college with your closest friends can in some way be a detriment to your college experience. Going off to college and living on my own, and truly “on my own,” is one of the most challenging transitions that I have undergone, but also one of the most fulfilling.

For one, making the conscious decision not to try to attend the same institution as a close friend or significant other can help you to make the most unbiased choices as to where you will apply and, ultimately, where you will attend college. Of course, it is possible that you and your best friend could find one school to be the ideal fit for both of you; however, it is also possible that you have different wants and needs, different majors requiring different programs, or varying financial constraints. By taking the pressure off of trying to find one school that can fit both of your wants and needs, you open each of you up to a larger variety of schools and ensures that neither of you will have to make sacrifices to end up together. On a similar note, don’t let a close friend or an older sibling’s current school impact your decision as to where you will attend. Your school has to be the right school for you independently of them and their presence there. Ask yourself: if they dropped out, would this still be somewhere I would like to be?

Entering college on your own, by necessity, requires you to reach out to new people and say yes to new experiences. As a natural introvert and someone who does not trust easily, I understand this is not necessarily an easy feat. For me, it is a challenge, but it is also fulfilling and an important skill to practice. Not only is it a valuable skill, it also opens you up to new people and new experiences that you otherwise would have missed out upon. Had I known that my close friends were right beside me, I doubt that I would have made the effort to go outside my comfort zone and meet new people nearly as much as I did. I even joined a sorority in search of getting to know more people and pushing myself to be more involved, which has proven to be a wonderful experience. Yes, it would have been nice to have someone that I trust from day-one to force to get lunch with me when I didn’t want to eat alone and go out on the weekends or stay in with me, but that isn’t what I really needed. I can eat at lunch sometimes and, when I don’t want to, I’ve made the kind of friends that I can drag with me. The comfort of familiarity is amazing, but it also isn’t always what you need. Sometimes you need to feel uncomfortable to get to where you need to be.

If drifting apart is what you fear, that is something that you need to put aside. If you are truly have a healthy friendship and you are both willing to put in the time and effort, no distance or separation will tear you apart. If the distance does impact your friendship, one of the great realities of life will occur and you will start to drift apart, each consumed in your lives, independent of one another. It will hurt at times, especially if one of you makes more effort than the other, but it is also normal and healthy. Not all relationships are built to be eternal, and that does not mean that they were not meaningful. Think of your parents: how many of their childhood friends do they still see regularly? Maybe a few, but almost certainly not all of them. Don’t be sad because it’s over, be glad that it happened. Enjoy the good memories and don’t put the pressure on yourself to mend a clean, natural break.

While your past friendships are important and valuable, so are your new ones, especially as you take on a new phase in your life. Branch out on your own and you’ll be surprised how successful you can be.