I’m one of those people who came to UC Davis with a herd of people from the same high school. Tri-Valley kids, you know what I’m talking about.
Freshman year, not one day would go by that I wouldn’t run into a high school acquaintance at the DC. And lucky for me, I considered some of those people from my high school to be some of my closest friends.
I remember feeling like there was an unspoken stigma attached to hanging out with your friends from high school in college. People seemed to stress that the expected thing to do in college was to meet entirely new people and join brand new social circles. There was a negative view of someone who continued to remain close with his or her high school friends, and this was something I never really understood.
Staying close with friends from high school isn’t an inhibitor for making new friends; in fact, I think having someone I knew, someone that I could always fall back on for quick DC meals or random events at the MU, allowed me to feel more comfortable when talking to new people and trying to make new friends.
So what if I’ve known most of my friends forever and they’re not someone new? Does it really make our friendship unworthy?
The stigma seems to do more harm than good. You shouldn’t have to give up on old friendships in order to force new ones. One thing I’ve learned about making friends in college is that friends come naturally and you shouldn’t try to control the experiences you have with people in college.
So don’t worry about the stigma. Remember that age-old saying, “Make new friends, but don’t forget the old. Because new is silver and old is gold.”