When entering college many students find themselves away from their family for the first time and this can lead to a variety of responses. Some are elated and feel as if they can uncover their own identity for the first time through being on their own, while others are terrified to find out who they are. Some adapt rather quickly to being away, while others are constantly homesick. These emotions are all especially true with freshman year, but still valid as the years progress. As a second-semester sophomore, I still miss home. Saint Mike’s can become home, but it’s never home. Your dorm bed may be adorned with the fluffy pillows you and your mom picked out at Marshall’s, but it’s not the bed from your childhood bedroom. The food you eat at Alliot will never compare to the food you eat at home. However, home is more than simply a place. It’s a feeling. Home is being with people you love and feeling wanted. We can find this at school through our friends. That’s how college can become home.
With this in mind, it is important to weave out who you call a friend. A friend should be someone you can always rely one. One who leaves you encouraging messages when you are down, one who sends you songs on Spotify because they thought you would like it, one who wears groufits with you every night, ones who throws dance parties on Tuesdays, one who listens to you when you need to vent, one who offers their shoulder to cry on, ones who jump out and scare you, but then make you laugh to make up for it. Ones who literally feel like sunshine.
I am grateful to have met a handful of people who provide this joy in my life. They make this college home for me. I feel as if in all of our lives we need to examine what friendship means. This may mean pulling away from those who are toxic, and growing closer to others. In the end, college will include a lot of memories. I want those memories to be good and filled with good people.