25 Things I Wish I Had Known Back in College:

Things I Wish I Had Known Back in College:

1. It’ll never be this easy to find friends your own age with similar experiences.
2. It’ll never be this easy to find friends, period.
3. For my entire life I’ve been able to make friends at school.  Sure, you may not feel connected to everyone you meet here, but it is not this easy when you’re in the real world.
4. There, not everyone is trying to make friends.  Here they are.
5. It doesn’t matter if they are in your major or not.  They feel different because you don’t know them well yet.  So go get to know them.
6. Trust me, it’ll only get harder to find the time for others.  Go get coffee together anyway.  It’ll be worth it.
7. You may pretend you are a lone wolf, but we both know that you need others caring about you to thrive.  The best way to find this is to make time for others.
8. When you find someone really important to you; find someone else just as significant.  Spend as much effort getting close to as many people as you can, because you’ll be lucky if any of them last past graduation. 
9. And when some of those loves do leave, you don’t want them to take all of the nostalgia from these four years with them.
10.  You’ll never agin know this many people in one city.
11. You’ll never again have the feeling of being a senior on campus.  Or a freshman, sophomore, or junior, for that matter…feeling this comfortable with your age, like it grants you the right to be here.  Like this campus and education are your birthright.  
12. Relish in this sense of belonging.  It’s a rare thing.
13. Focus of surviving, not the struggle.  Others will understand it in their own time, and it’ll feel validating when they come to you for help.  Find a way to make these circumstances bring you closer to them, rather than using them as a reason to isolate yourself.
14. Learning to make coworkers your friends is a skill that you learned; one that not everyone has.  Cherish when work feels like an odd activity with friends.
15. Also those work friends (and bosses) are incredible.  Learn as much as you can from them and love them fully.
16. Oh, and you’re introverted.  So you don’t have to go out and you can stop looking for excuses not to.  
17. Know, however, that you’ll never again have the option to go out to a safe location that you’ve been before, where you’re surrounded entirely by a group that knows and respects you.  So if you are gonna to go out, this is a pretty great place to do it.
18. Oh, and go for the friends, not the boys.  People make parties sound like they’re only about finding someone to hook up with….but if we see them everyday at class and don’t like ‘em, seeing them drunk isn’t going to help.  It’s perfectly fine just go for friendship.  
19. Academic courses can be taken pass/fail.  (Damn you class freshman year on human genetics)
20. Be articulate.  If you need space from someone, tell them you need space.  Don’t just disappear.  You may later wish you still had them in your life.
21. Take every opportunity there is.  And if it’s not given to you, make it and do such a good damn job at it that those who were chose wish they had instead what you did.
22. Go to others’ graduations.  It’ll help you remember that your time there is limited and to make the most of it.
23. Make new memories with your old friends.  That’s what will make room for both of your growths.
24. Travel during breaks; go home with friends.  You’ll never have this many places to crash, nor will all aspects of your life be as easily be set to pause.
25. It’s okay that not everyone knows all aspects of you.  If you find someone that only understands one piece of it, then relish in that one piece and make time with them.  It’s better to have many people that you go to for one thing, than having one person who knows it all but leaves.

Me as a freshman (top left), sophomore (top right), junior (bottom left), and senior (bottom right).

and a bonus: What I’ve Learned From Writing This List:

1. I miss being surrounded by people who know me.
2. And having something in common with almost everyone I see.
3. I miss others’ willingness to connect with someone new.
4. And I really miss having a best friend.
5. I miss being able to get everywhere I need to be BY FOOT. 
6. And common goals; like tests and evaluations.
7. I’m nostalgic, tempted to go back to school just to have a community again.
8. And though I spent so much of college stressing about casting and plays….not once on this list did I mention anything about art.
9. Art is a given, I really am much more concerned with surrounding myself with people I love,
10. And living life on a path with the fewest regrets.