The most exciting thing about going to college was the prospect of meeting new people. Whether at family gatherings or high school sleepovers, everyone professed the opportunities Penn State will provide me with to ‘find my group of lifelong friends’. As a 17-year-old with the same group of friends since my early years, I thought I already found my people. However, were our “kindergarten to college” promises strong enough to hold true in college?
Around the time of my Facebook roommate search, it was a mutual decision that my high school friends who received acceptances to Penn State’s University Park Campus would find new people to live with. The posts in the housing group posed as displays of a handful of students’ most fun and likable pictures, along with an extremely unique blurb expressing their interests in hopes of finding a good balance between going out and studying.
Picking one person or the other, the only thing that mattered was that my chosen roommate needed to see me at my worst, homesick and full of tears for a few weeks, making this pact an ultimatum on their part.
After sending a million direct messages along the lines of, “hey girl!! I saw you in the fb chat and we seem similar, so I thought I’d reach out as I’m still looking for a roommate,” I found my roommate for the first year at Penn State. It was a brief period between then and move-in where I found myself getting to know my roommate but still anxious about leaving home. Not long after, housing assignments were announced, and I reached out to my high school friends to find three of them to be within a 100ft vicinity. One lived on my exact floor, one lived two floors below me and one stayed in the building next door. I cannot speak for anyone but myself, but seeing familiar faces, let alone some of your best friends close by eased the transition process for me.
Let’s not forget, my freshman year of college was 2020, the height of the pandemic. With classes on Zoom and dining halls only open for take-out, I would say it proved difficult to take part in the traditional “getting to know you” aspects of college-move-in. Restrictions were strongly implemented, which limited the venturing into other dorm buildings. Thankfully for me, with my high school friends close by, we saw each other so often we ended up in each other’s rooms almost every day. Other than these hangouts, the most interactive event was a masked movie on the lawn that connected the freshman dorms. It seemed safe to say this year sounded like it was going to be nothing short of the time of my life.
The semester continued with the same schedule repeat: Zoom classes, mandatory masking, shower shoes and dorm room wallpaper.
Seriously, every time I would walk past someone’s room, I would see the brick wall and LED light combo. I remained jealous of the intricately decorated rooms that looked like they could be used for Dormify ads with tufted headboards, framed designer prints and neon name signs. Meanwhile, my side of the room was embellished with free prints from Shutterfly that I found on Pinterest, a shower caddy and a consistently unmade bed. After further reflection, I can conclude that the state of my room was in fact a representation of my mind: scattered, desolate and unsettled. On the other hand, based on a visual representation, it seemed that my roommate was organized and adjusting a lot better than me.
College is a phase of experimentation, acclimation, and self-discovery. Through this, it remained helpful to be alongside people there who understood you, your background and most literally, knew your family. Moving to college resembled starting completely fresh: having deep talks with your roommate, explaining how many siblings make up your family, describing your hometown and naming your favorite snacks. I cannot say what life aside from the pandemic would entail, but I can say how appreciative I am for the friends that I could lean on.
Being a shy person, I limited myself as to how far outside of my comfort zone I wanted to go. I would meet new people, but it seemed hard to decipher between the girls who say they want to “get together and hang sometime” and the ones who follow through. Don’t get me wrong, I did meet people whom I classify as close friends to this day. I was able to filter through the multitude of people by valuing the ones I saw regularly and enjoyed their presence, even if it was just to do homework.
Now, I cannot imagine life without them and appreciate them with my whole heart.
As my freshman year ended, it was time to leave the unrenovated dorms for an apartment that closely resembled the same characteristics. To this day, I still live in the same apartment with some of my best friends, both from school and from home. I went into college with the mindset that my roommate would be my best friend whom I would do everything with because that’s what the norm implied. While this wasn’t the case for me, the ability to simply live civilly can surpass any expectations. My point lies in that I will never forget where I came from. These experiences shaped the person I am today, and I couldn’t ask for it any other way. I am privileged for the people I met people along the way and thankful for the ones who stayed by my side through the ups and downs.
