Although the holidays are great for bringing people together, it can also tear people apart. Being a college student, you are forced to create new bonds and to make new “families” in short periods of time. You never really know how much you love or how much you will miss someone until you are torn away from them. College students have been living in tight corridors for the past four months, and have made connections that end up being stronger than your relationships you have had your whole life.

New adults are finally able to let loose and set their own rules and boundaries, yet when they go back to wherever he or she calls home, mom and dad make them fit back into their little house with the constricting rules.

Being at college gives students a sense of liberation. Here they can finally be living up to their own expectations, decorate to their liking and most importantly, learn how to budget or not to budget.

This part of the year is crucial to learning about true friends and friend groups due to having the distance apart. The cheesy saying that “true friends are never apart, maybe in distance but never at heart,” really plays a role into this situation. Distance helps you realize what you have and how badly you need something once you have it. This will be the first long break for several students on campus which will magnify how it will all play out. Friends who are normally the first faces that greet you in the morning will turn into a forgotten text or snapchat.

Going home helps kindle old sparks with what we call “friends” and celebrate with the both sides of the family to maximize the relationships and the quality time spent together, while reminiscing on stories the family has heard for several years.

Being off for so long makes most students puzzled. Some take advantage of the extended break and go abroad, while others take up jobs trying to help make ends meet. Coming back to campus is where things get tough. Mixed feelings flood the halls as the kids run back to their dorms with excitement, until they remember everything they left behind. The schools are prepared for this by hosting events to help with the distraction, yet their main goal is to throw the students back into the education that they paid for and to take up all the school spirit.

Home is where the heart is, but my heart has changed.