Everyone talks about the transition from high school to college like there is some magical switch that flips the second you move into your dorm. One day, you are a high school student, and the next, you are officially a college student who somehow knows how to do laundry, manage a schedule, make new friends, and figure out what you want to do with the rest of your life.
Except, at least for me, that switch never really flipped.
Instead, I have found myself in this weird in-between. I know that I have outgrown high school, but sometimes I still don’t fully feel like a college student either.
Move-in day was probably the first time I really felt that.
Moving into my dorm was a little chaotic, as I think most move-in days are. There were bags and boxes everywhere, things that needed to be organized, and the realization that somehow everything I brought was supposed to fit into one room. But once everything settled down, my first night was actually great.
It almost felt like a sleepover.
I was lucky because my roommate wasn’t a complete stranger. We had already had a sleepover before moving in, and by the time we got to college, I already knew her like a sister. That made the first night so much easier. Instead of lying in a completely unfamiliar room next to someone I had just met, I was with someone I was already comfortable around.
But there was still one major difference: this sleepover wasn’t ending the next morning.
I wasn’t going to pack my bag, get picked up, and go back home. This room was home now, at least for the next year. My clothes were in the closet, my things were on the walls, and the person sleeping a few feet away from me wasn’t just having me over for the night. We actually lived together.
I think that was one of the first moments when college started to feel real.
It is strange to think that only a few months ago, I knew exactly where I was going every morning. I knew the hallways, the teachers, the people I would see, and what my day would look like. I had spent four years building a life there. I had my friends, my activities, my routines, and the roles I had grown into. By senior year, everything felt familiar.
Then, suddenly, graduation happened.
You spend your entire senior year waiting for it. There are countdowns to graduation, college decisions, senior events, and endless conversations about how excited everyone is to leave. You start imagining your dorm room and wondering who your new friends will be. By the end, you feel ready to move on.
And then you actually do.
College gives you a level of independence that high school never really could. Nobody is reminding you that an assignment is due. Your schedule can look completely different every day. You can grab dinner when you want, join a club where you don’t know a single person, or decide to spend an afternoon somewhere you have never been before.
There is something exciting about that freedom. At the same time, there is something uncomfortable about realizing that almost everything that used to feel familiar is no longer part of your everyday life.
I think one of the strangest parts is that I don’t necessarily want to go back.
I loved so many parts of high school, and I will always appreciate the memories and people that came from it. But I also know I am ready for something new. Going back would not feel the same because I am not the same person I was when I first walked through those doors.
Still, being ready to leave one chapter does not mean you immediately feel at home in the next one.
Sometimes I walk around campus and see upperclassmen who seem like they have everything figured out. They know where they are going, they have established friend groups, and college just seems natural to them. Meanwhile, I still occasionally have moments where I think, Wait, I actually go here.
But maybe that is exactly what freshman year is supposed to feel like.
Maybe we are not supposed to arrive on campus already knowing exactly who we are going to be. College is not just about earning a degree or preparing for a career. It is also about slowly creating a new version of your life.
That takes time.
The person I was in high school did not appear overnight. She was built through four years of experiences, friendships, mistakes, accomplishments, and changes. It would be unrealistic to expect myself to create that same sense of belonging in college after only a few weeks.
So, for now, I am learning to be okay with the in-between.
I can miss Friday nights, familiar faces, old traditions, and the version of myself that existed in high school while still being excited about who I am becoming. I can feel nervous walking into a meeting where I don’t know anyone and still walk through the door. I can call home when I miss it and still build a home somewhere new.
Maybe becoming a college student is not a switch that flips at all.
Maybe it happens little by little, the first night your dorm stops feeling like a sleepover and starts feeling like your room, the first inside joke with a new friend, the first club that starts to feel like yours, or even the first time someone asks you for directions and you actually know the answer.
And one day, without even realizing it, this place that once felt completely unfamiliar might start to feel like mine.
For now, though, I am somewhere between the person I was and the person I am becoming.
And I think I am starting to realize that there is something kind of exciting about being in between.