Having no family on campus for the first time has me feeling like a Freshman all over again
Growing up, I was always surrounded by the people that cared the most about me. I’m the second youngest of five kids whose parents never missed a soccer game, performance, football practice or tennis match. Since my freshman year of college, my older sister has been on campus, studying at the same university. We were even in Madison together for one more year than we were supposed to be, but now she’s outgrown the college lifestyle, the main grocery store on campus where she worked as a cashier and the bars that all the Freshmen go to. Having a sibling on campus is like being in college, but still having a part of home there with you. As a Senior, I’m faced with a feeling most college students experience in their first year, which makes me feel all the more grateful for my big sister.
If you know Madison, you know how the city can come alive. People flood the sidewalks from the Capitol square to the far West end of campus, where the university blends into the suburbs. Nowhere else will you find a college town with so many experiences and opportunities available to you . Weekly trips to the grocery store, ditching class for the mall and splitting the money made on Ubereats errands (which she kept the entirety of, by the way) were all things I began associating with time spent with my sister. Now in my last year of undergrad, I’ve recently learned to focus back in on life on campus compared to my previous years. To go from having access to a car at school one minute and then to walking everywhere is a really humbling experience. Then again, it’s nice to not worry about which of us will wake up the next morning to move it so we don’t get a ticket. What’s even better is not worrying about who will pay for the ticket. Although Madison parking enforcement has kicked me a few times where it really hurt, I’ll remember even more the times when my big sister tried to help me forget about it. One morning after saying I would move the car at eight for trash pickup, I slept through my morning alarm. When my sister asked about the blue and white receipt on the kitchen counter, I was so upset with myself I couldn’t get any words out. Days later, I found a similar blue and white receipt stuffed under the passenger seat from the morning before; the last time I parked the car. She never told me about it, but I got another ticket that day from parking in a no tow zone.
Not only did we go to school together, we also shared an apartment for her last semester of undergrad. Now, you may have sat back for a moment and thought about how it would work living with your sibling in college, and maybe your first reaction is that it wouldn’t work. You’d feel like you were no longer in college, but back at home with your parents, or you’d hate not having ‘your own life’ with your own roommates and your own place. None of these things were a factor for me in the end, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a bit hesitant about it at first, and I know my sister would say the same. Needless to say, I don’t regret a thing about my choice.
If you find yourself with the opportunity to have a sibling double as a roommate in college or out of it, I would highly recommend the experience. There’s nothing like having a long day of classes or a fun night out and getting to come back to your place to tell family about it. I got to be with my sister when she walked out of her last clinical rotation at UW Health, and I was there when she was studying for the test that her career depended on. When I had a falling out with a friend, she was there for me as much as I was for her on a bad day. I learned she doesn’t like washing dishes very much and that when she’s got an exam coming up, she needs some time by herself just as much as she needs a study buddy. But I also got to live under the same roof as my big sister one last time.