Dear freshmen,

I know you're ready for summer. I know you are so excited to go home and forget all about school for a few months. Summer after your first year of college is great, trust me. However, there is one thing you don't want to forget this summer.

Your friends. For the past eights months you have seen some of these people every day, and it has just become second nature that you can go to their room when you need to get away. When you go home, life will be great and you will have no responsibilities. Your best friend who has also been at college will be home and you will think to yourself "How can it get any better than this?" Then all your old temptations and your past will come up because these people know you. You will be re-surrounded by the people who knew who you were; not who you are now. Don't get me wrong, it is great to come back and catch up with your old friends, but unless you have some sort of extraterrestrial manpower, you are going to go back to doing exactly what you did before you left. (If before you left you would go to the movies and have a weekly bible study, have no fear. This is great.)

I know this seems silly, but try to maintain contact with your best friends from school. (Trust me, I thought my good friends and I would talk every single day. But the summer is busy, which is crazy considering we all did nothing.) These people know who you are now. They know all about your current struggles and all about how you've grown. They know that a guy from college is not texting you back. They know you.

I'm not saying to ignore your friends from home, but you now have a whole other group of great people who love you just as much. Let them know you didn't die. When you come back in August, it's going to feel like you never left, but everyone has grown.

College is great. Friendships are great. Build them up.

From,

Me