Where you go to high school isn’t always your choice. It’s often determined by your zip code, which is most likely chosen by your parents. When you start your freshman year in high school, you’re generally surrounded by people who live in or around your same neighborhood. Maybe your parents work in the same office or your older siblings are on the same soccer team. Maybe every face in your biology class is new, or perhaps you’ve known most of your high school classmates since you were five. Whatever the circumstances, when you enter high school, you are doing it because it’s the law, and because it’s the next step in your life. High school chooses you… you rarely choose it. So really, it’s a random group of people forced into one place, and it’s up to you to find friends to help get you through the next four years. Making friends is often about convenience in high school. Schedules that match, home addresses that make a short ride easy for parents to drive to and from, the same sports teams and family friendships that formed long before you had a say. It’s funny to think of my high school friends because we were all so different. Some were jocks, but many weren’t. Some hated girly activities like shopping and manicures, some didn’t. Many hated to read, I loved it. Some loved to be in social settings while some were uncomfortable with it. Yet we all were friends at the time. Since college began, however, some of those friendships have lasted, while others have not.
College is different. When choosing a college, a lot of people have more of a choice than they did for high school. Not only do you have a say in the school, but also a say in whether or not you even want to attend college. Oftentimes, things that determine what college you choose are cost, location, academic departments, athletic programs, extracurricular activities etc. Some of the reasons I chose to go to the University of Michigan were that I wanted to be with mid-western people, I admired a big school, I was captivated by the football culture, and I yearned for challenging academics. When I arrived at Michigan, I found out that many of the people in my dorm and classes chose Michigan for many of the same reasons. College is a place you go to spend four years with people who are in some ways similar to you, so making friends is different than it was in high school. You’ve grown up a bit and you’re in an environment with a lot of leeway. You pick people you get along with and are compatible with (hopefully!) because you see people in all their glory with nothing holding them back.
After going to college freshman year and embarking on your adult life, it’s different going back to your high school friends. How do you describe your new college life in a way that does it justice? You love some of your high school friends as much as you did when you were five, but some of them you realize you have absolutely nothing in common with anymore. I’m sure this process will go on for our whole lives – you land a wonderful job and make work friends, you move for that job and make friends in a new state, or you start dating a guy who introduces you to his group of friends. Somehow, someway, you hold on to the friends that you love who make you laugh until you cry and comfort you when you think nothing will…and you just let go of those that don’t.