Congratulations! You just graduated high school, and now you’re finally able to enter the wonderful, glorious world of college.
Allow me to impart some words of wisdom and advice that I’ve gained from my own experience concerning three very general topics: roommates, friends and romantic interests.
For many of you, college will be your first time sharing a room, and for pretty much everyone else, it will be the first time you’re sharing a room with a stranger. It can be a pretty scary experience, and rightfully so. I’ve heard plenty of horror stories about roommates, but I’ve also seen many roommate conflicts that were peacefully resolved. The most basic part of roommate chemistry is that the two (or more) of you are comfortable and happy within the confines of your room.
But a roommate can be more than someone with whom you merely co-exist, obviously. I have seen plenty of great friendships that began as a random housing assignment. Personally, I was fortunate enough to have a great (but utterly insane) roommate for my first two years of college.
Still, not everyone gets along with everyone else; it’s inconceivable to think that every roommate combination will just automatically work amazingly, if at all. All that matters is that you and your roommate(s) try to get along. And if worst comes to worst, talk to your RA about it (we’re actually very nice people ‘ not that I’m biased or anything).
I’ll switch now from new friends (or at least people you should try to be friends with) to old friends. Many of your friends will be attending different colleges and universities all across our great land, while some will be staying home for school or work. Regardless of where you are, everyone is exposed to new people after high school. So how do you handle balancing these new friends with your old trusted compatriots from back home? You don’t.
Like everything else from home, these old friends are dead to you and should remain gone and buried in the past ‘ OK, not really. These are your friends ‘ and now you have more of them! You have made friends before in the past, right? And if you haven’t, college is certainly the place to start! Just make sure to stay in touch with everyone while you’re apart; you can easily reconnect on holidays and vacations. If only everything in life was this easy!
Like boyfriends and girlfriends, for example.
As Pipe Dream’s Relationships Columnist, one of the biggest questions I’ve contemplated and debated is whether to break up with your high school sweetheart before leaving for college. After much deliberation, it is my professional(ish) opinion that the best thing for both parties involved is to end things before you leave for school ‘ probably even well before the summer ends ‘ just so you are used to being apart from each other.
No matter how in love (or in like) two people are, there are always going to be some feelings of resentment below the surface ‘ with thousands of new faces, anyone would be frustrated that he/she can’t play the field. That is not a healthy thing for any relationship, especially on top of the added stress of being so far apart. As long as it is a clean break, with as little bitterness as possible, both people can only benefit.
And if for whatever reason things don’t go exactly as planned, who cares! You’re in college now. Real problems don’t start for four more years.