Leaving BU’s campus for the rest of the semester has truly taught me to appreciate the little things in life. As much as I love my home in New Jersey, some things just aren’t the same. Here’s a list of everything I’m missing about college life—things that we will all now be more appreciative and thankful of.
- Enjoying freedom and independence
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Maybe the biggest part of the transition from home life to college life is the independence and freedom that comes with it. For the first time in your whole life, you are completely on your own—no more depending on your parents to do your laundry and cook your food. It’s all up to you now. And while this freedom of having to conquer a whole new scary life on your own is incredibly intimidating at first, it becomes something that you cherish and appreciate because it teaches you how to be your own person. You’re in charge of finding your classes and getting to them on time, you’re in charge of making sure you eat three meals a day (no matter how gross the dining hall food might be), you’re in charge of doing laundry once in a blue moon. No matter how tedious some of these tasks may be, it is something I miss so much and I can’t wait to get back.
- Going to in-person classes (yes, really)
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Yes, I do miss college classes. Zoom just isn’t the same as being there in person to see your friends, and it’s not as fun falling asleep during a lecture on Zoom as it is in person. I miss getting to class off the BU bus or a long walk and walking into class to see all my friends. Also, I will admit that walking to classes every day was my only exercise at BU (I need that back because I get absolutely no exercise sitting around at home all day). For those of you that do not go to BU, you should know that our campus is incredibly long and most would say that walking to classes is an actual workout (so no judgment please).
- Exploring Boston
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Going to school in an amazing city like Boston gives me so many opportunities to explore. During my first fall semester, all I did was take the T to different areas of Boston to just walk around or find a cute coffee shop to do work at. I miss going to museums, shopping on Newbury, and finding amazing restaurants. Being quarantined in the suburbs of New Jersey right now just isn’t the same as being in the bustling city of Boston, as you may guess. I cannot wait to get back and explore even more.
- Maintaining an actual sleep schedule
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Living in a dorm and being on an actual campus made it easy to have a set sleep schedule (for me, at least). I knew when I went to bed every night, and I always woke up at the same time every morning. But now, being at home again has very much messed up my sleep schedule because for some reason I don’t think I need to sleep anymore and I stay up watching movies all night. Most people do not attend Zoom classes when they’re big lectures, which makes me think I do not need to go to class anymore. As you can guess, this is very bad because I don’t go to sleep until 3 am and I sleep in every morning. To put it simply, my body clock is messed up. I never thought I would say this, but I miss living in my dorm (but I definitely do not miss the dorm bathrooms-gross).
- Having an endless amount of activities to go to
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College life provides you with so many activities to attend; your schedule will always be busy. You have places to go, people to meet, events to go to, etc. Constantly being busy is in a lot of ways a gift—you feel incredibly productive and accomplished. Quarantine has provided us with the complete opposite of this—I know that I personally am going insane because I have lots of free time. I look forward to feeling productive again. But, there are a lot of ways to be productive while at home, so I will definitely look up Youtube videos about that.
Although I miss college life more than anything, I am learning to appreciate a slow-paced life at home. I think this is the perfect time for us all to sit back and do some reflection in our lives because before you know it, we’ll all be occupied by our busy lives again.
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