I’m sure you all have dreamed about your first nights and weeks and months of freshman year for as long as you can remember: Will I make friends? Will I have fun? Will I dress up cute enough? Those are some thoughts that constantly crossed my mind in the years leading up to college. For some people, making friends and finding your people is as easy as meeting the girls across the hall and instantly clicking. For me, it was a little more difficult. Looking back, I now know why it was so difficult. Even though I was having fun with the girls I met and I liked them a lot, my mistake was that I didn’t want to be close to any of them, in my head, they’d never be as good to me as my friends from back home. Here are some things I learned.
But it seems so easy for everyone else
It can be hard seeing everyone else around you instantly making these seemingly perfect friend groups, but it’s important to remind yourself that everything seems brighter on social media. It’s common to struggle with accepting your new life and to allow all these new people from college to see you vulnerable in real situations.
My Mistake & My Solution
I ended my first semester content with my social life but not content with my ability to trust or feel a true connection with anyone at college. I realized my mistake. I was the problem, not everyone else. I had to accept that my friends at college will never be like my home friends and that is because, as simple as it is, those people are not the same. The second I began viewing these friends from college in a new light, I instantly had a better experience. I was able to easier grow into myself and who I am now, outside of high school.
They will help you grow
Your college friends will revitalize your life in new ways, they will open new doors and explore new boundaries with you. Those friends from home will always be the girls that are “like your sisters”, but that doesn’t mean you can’t find girls like that in college too.
What to do
My advice? Meet everyone with an open mind. Remember they are just as vulnerable as you. In college, you will change. Whether you want to or not, you will walk away from freshman year a different person than you were on the day you nervously moved into your freshman dorm. Accept your change. If people from home are upset that you’ve changed, it’s only because they didn’t. Branch out. It will be a process of trial and error and it won’t be easy right away. But don’t forget that everyone is on the same page and that no one is looking at you weirdly. You won’t find friends as tight knit as your high school friends in the first week, month, or maybe even year. Give it time. College is your chance to find more of who you are. Embrace your new beginning, you’ll love this transformed version of yourself a lot more than you might think. You’ll know you are doing college right when you don’t want to go home for breaks (well…maybe a little to eat your mom’s cooking or hug your puppy).