Graduating from high school marks a significant chapter in a person’s life. It symbolizes a shift that propels a person forward into a life far away from home. Students are separated from their friends and families and are expected to form bonds and connections with new people on their own. It can be hard to build a stable bridge between the relationships that already exist in your life and the ones that are being constructed in college.
In my first year of college the transition to life amongst new friends and new people felt quite natural. I jumped at the chance to participate in campus events and other social engagements that Pace University had to offer. I worked with people in class and found like-minded peers who shared similar interests with me, prompting out-of-class studying and socialization.
My sophomore year, I joined the Nature Club and made friends with some of my fellow club members, finding a small but strong community of people who care about the same things and enjoy outdoor activities such as hiking. However, I am most thankful for making an effort to form strong relationships with my freshman year suitemates. Both of my suitemates were on Pace’s Swim and Dive Team and because we became such close friends, I was often invited to social gatherings with the rest of the team, despite not being a swimmer myself. I found some of my favorite people on this team and I am forever grateful for making the connections that I have, even when the connections seemed so simple to begin with. This process of making new friends was never easy though, as a lot of these friendships took time to build. Some relationships did not last very long, with some of them ending very badly and some of them slowly deteriorating over time. I only ever joined one club and I have never been a part of college athletics, but I did my best to take advantage of situations where I was surrounded by new people to create a fresh life for myself.
It was very challenging to make enough time for friends and family back home amidst the influx of work and the new friends that I was trying to build relationships with. In order to maintain these relationships with old friends and my family, I made an effort to text them as often as I could throughout the week. We would exchange stories and give updates on our separate lives so that we stayed involved and engaged with each other even while we were physically apart. I would try my best to schedule Facetime calls at least once a week with friends and family. It helps to communicate over text but when you really miss the people you love it can be hard to go without seeing their faces and audibly hearing them laugh. I found a lot of value in making time for those Facetime calls. Sometimes things would get extremely hectic and busy and our schedules wouldn’t align in time to make a call, but we wouldn’t let it discourage us from making a call the next chance we were free. I found it very important to make that sort of communication consistent as much as possible, and I have stayed close friends with those who I remained consistently in contact with.
Beyond making time for your relationships with others, it is important to fit in enough time to maintain your relationship with yourself. It can be overwhelming when it feels like there are so many different people to spend time with, but it is also necessary to allot certain points in the week purely and solely for yourself, free of others. I found that going on periodic walks helped to clear my head and give me the alone time that I needed every once in a while. There were certainly periods of time when I felt suffocated by socialization and I realized that I needed a break from dedicating so much time towards others.
The key to juggling relationships is just working out a plan, either mental or physical, that divvies up enough time for all of the people that you care enough about. Putting in the time and effort towards others emphasizes care and compassion; no matter how hard things are or how busy things may get, consistency is essential.
By Ryder Huseby
Ryder is going into his Junior year as a Writing and Rhetoric major at Pace University in Pleasantville, New York. Ryder is a passionate reader and enjoys going to the movie theater as often as he can.
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