Ah, college. The sweetest four (maybe five) years of our young adult lives. We not only discover ourselves and who we want to be in life, we also discover what we want to do with our lives and how we will impact the world. However, one of the most important parts of college is the friends we make. In college we meet our soul mates, our best friends for life, or most importantly, the people you can’t live with and most certainly can’t live without. Here are 12 reasons why you should be thankful for the friends college has brought you.

1. Always knowing that when you get done from class, you’ll have at least 30 texts to catch up on regarding drama, boys, what outfit to wear, and most importantly, where we’re going for dinner.

Because who doesn’t love checking their phones and having 125 unopened texts?

2. Always being the first ones to immediately say no when you ask them, “Should I work out today?”

The freshman 15 is a very real thing, however, if you find the right friends they’ll make you feel like working out is a waste of time and that one cookie is worth all the extra calories.

3. Someone is always willing to make a late night stop at cookout or the occasional 24-hour dining hall.

There’s always that one friend that texts in the group chat, “Sooo is anyone else starving?”

4. Their families become your family when your parents can’t come to parent’s weekend.

Parent’s weekends are great when our parents can actually come, but if they can’t come you’re still in luck. Your friend’s parents will take you in as their own and make you feel just as at home with them like you would with your own parents.

5. Always having a closet to shop in because you’re a #broke college student.

Who needs a mall when you have at least eight closets to shop in?! And it’s free!

6. Having that one friend who encourages you to go downtown in a T-shirt.

Getting to college and using the excuse, “I don’t want to have to get ready,” become irrelevant when you have a friend like this around.

7. Always having a friend who’s willing to eat dinner with you at 4 P.M. and then a second dinner with you at 10 P.M.

Everyone says the older you get, the earlier you eat dinner. But no one said anything about having two dinners at night. Because let’s be real, one dinner a night just isn’t as great as two.

8. Always encouraging the buddy system.

Because the buddy system was important when we were younger and is still just as relevant in our early 20s.

9. Having a shoulder to cry on when the “fun” wine night goes wrong.

Wine nights are all fun and games until someone gets emotional. When that happens, know you'll have an entire group of girls there to talk to and those girls will automatically dislike the person that's making you upset.

10. Always having someone to brag on your mistakes instead of judge you for them.

We all make mistakes, however, once you find the right group of people, they will stand by your side and always laugh with you at them. Unless it's really funny, then they may laugh at you, but in the most loving way possible.

11. Always knowing that someone in the friend group will end up acting like a mom and take care of you.

There's always that one friend in the friend group who adopts the nickname 'mom' and does whatever it takes to make sure her 'kids' are safe at the end of the day.

12. Being constantly reminded that you are loved inside and out, no matter how crazy you may be.

No matter what, at the end of the day these people love you for exactly who you are. That's one of the things that makes college truly great.