As a new school year fast approaches, students return to campus and new students begin to pack up their old lives to begin anew. This means hours spent deciding which ten sweaters will best serve as a winter wardrobe and which pair of converse will go with the most outfits. It’s a long and difficult process as you realize that you must downsize your closet into the tiny closet and three drawers provided in most dorms. Gone are the days when you could keep that dress you’ve had for five years that you once loved and maybe one day will love again in your closet. As vacuum bags are filled and then emptied of air, you begin to say goodbye to your friends, family, and childhood home. With each oversized sleep shirt you leave behind, you say goodbye to a memory of summer camp or an event you attended with your best friends. As your closet becomes emptier and you find hidden gems that fell behind the clothes that have been spilling out for years. These finds are tokens of your childhood that you’re now realizing is quickly coming to a close. You’re beginning the process of becoming an adult and building your own life. This process begins with the first few socks you lay in the bottom of your suitcase. It becomes overwhelming quickly, but don’t worry, I have compiled a list of things that you can do to postpone growing up just a little longer.

1. Binge watch something on Netflix

Summer is coming to an end, so you’ve seen most of the shows you planned to watch over summer, but there are still many more to go. Join the movement and watch Stranger Things. OR rewatch one of your old favorites. Watch as many Netflix original movies or old disney channel movies before realizing that you can’t put off packing any longer as you’re leaving for school in the morning.

2. Teach yourself how to cook

You are about to embark on a new journey without parents. This means that aside from the dining hall freshman year, you will probably have to cook your own meals. Learn how to cook now (while your parents supply the ingredients), so that when you’re on your own in the grocery store for the first time, you know what to buy to whip up an edible meal.

3. Watch every mini cooking video ever produced

Watch Tasty videos from every country that makes them. When you finish watching those, watch the knockoff Tasty videos that most cooking pages on Facebook have begun to post. You are entering a year notorious for the freshman 15, so you should at least know what’s available to eat before indulging in a package of 7/11 taquitos at 3AM.

4. Attempt to make a few Pinterest DIYs for your dorm room

Spend hours on Pinterest looking for the perfect DIY dorm decor for your room. Then, when you actually attempt to make it, you’ll realize that the instructions skip about ten steps and your perfect DIY will fail. At least you gave it a shot and now know that in the future, you will need to buy curtains and pillows for your adult apartment rather than attempting to make them. Welcome to adulthood where some people can do things and some people can’t.

5. Watch every college video available on YouTube

YouTube is full of thousands and thousands of videos filled with the same advice and hauls showing the same velvety skinny hangers (which are apparently a must!). However, the more videos that you watch, the more prepared you will be to take on your new beginning. So, soak up as much advice as you can as you browse the web for the same sheet set that everyone seems to have.

6. Text your friends who have already packed and been settled in at college to give you advice

If you’re on the quarter system and your friends are not, this probably means that they have left before you. You’re in luck! You’re friends have already been through the packing process and probably struggled just as much as you are. Ask them how they packed! They might have learned a thing or two while packing that will save you from going through the same hardships that they did. Once they give you their advice, absorb and spend a few days trying to make a meaning out of it to further prolong the process of applying said advice.

7. Explore your hometown

In a few weeks, you will be leaving the huge city or tiny town that you have called home for the past several years. Go out and explore every place that you’ve always wanted to go to but never actually gotten around to visiting. Then, go to your favorite restaurants, coffee shops, stores, and secret spots that you’ve found and have always loved. This could be your last time visiting them for several months or longer.

8. Spend time with your friends and family before you leave

You have a few short weeks left with the people you love before you leave home and your friends go their separate ways. Go somewhere that you can talk and catch up. Take your time to say goodbye to everyone of them individually. Go to the beach with you best friends. Take your friend out for lunch the day before he or she leaves. Do something with you family that you’ve never done before. Saying your goodbyes will take up time and therefore will put off packing. However, these goodbyes will probably be harder than saying goodbye to the memories stored in your closet.

9. Go through your room and find everything you don’t need

Before you pack, go through every inch of your room and find everything that you don’t need or haven’t used in years. You probably still have a few sweaters from middle school that you haven’t been able to throw out and books that you purchased at your elementary school bookfair that you read once and never saw again. Now is the time to get rid of all of this stuff. Give it all to charity or try to sell it to consignment stores or on ebay.

10. Sit in your bed and think about everything that you’re leaving as well as everything you’ll be gaining

Take a few minutes or even a few days to think about the people, the places, the things, and the memories you’re leaving behind. Then, think about the new people, new places, new things and new memories you’ll be gaining in the coming years. You’re not losing what you’re leaving behind, it’ll still be there when you come home.