Remember when your biggest fear in middle school was changing for gym in front of all your friends, and then by high school, you were trotting around in your underwear socializing casually?

Living with roommates at college is a similar process.

Prior to college, I had never shared my room with a sibling and I had attended only a handful of sleepovers. As a result, my experience with sharing a living space was limited and I was, admittedly, concerned about living with someone I didn’t know.

Now, I live in an apartment with three other people and we get along great. Yes, there were rough patches along the way but, eventually, friend groups band together and form functional living situations.

While sitting the couch in the common area of the apartment trying to think of what to write about for this week’s article, I have one roommate standing on a chair, above the table, working on a Mozart puzzle. There’s another roommate talking about board games with a room guest and, in the distance, the distinct laugh of another roommate’s guest can be heard from the other side of the wall.

With this semester coming to a close and roommate selections underway, some of us are headed our separate ways. I went from being worried about who I was living with to being concerned that, if I get an RA position, I would go back to living alone.

The hum of conversation, laughter, and the TV in the background create the homely environment most students worry they will miss during their years at college. If this is something you’re worried about, there’s no need for concern.

For most of your life, you have probably associated home with where your family is. While that place will always be there for you, home is wherever you decide to make it.

It’s just as important to create a family at college as it is to have a support system back home.

What’s important is to be yourself.

My favorite parts of my roommates aren’t that they are quiet or good students or smart, although they are and those qualities don’t hurt. My favorite traits are the more personal ones.

One roommate eats bananas and potatoes like they are going out of style, or she always has the TV on and she had introduced me to so many new TV shows. The other roommate bakes, cooks, reads, and, like me, washes the dishes as a form of procrastination.

Because of these small things everyone brings to the table, we create a comfortable living environment. But it’s important to find a respectful place between your behaviors living alone and when you’re living with others.

It may be nice to watch loud TV until 4 A.M. But when you're living with others, just watching it into the evening with roommates and turning it off when everyone goes to bed is a way to still maintain and share your interests while being respectful to others.

So if you’re applying to colleges and you are concerned about living with new people, it may not be ideal the first time around, but there’s a group of people for everyone.

You’ll soon find a home away from home.