When away at college, a lot of students find themselves living in a new apartment, dorm, or house for the academic year or longer. This new living space might feel like foreign soil, and it may take a while to ever think of it as a place to call home. It doesn’t have the same color walls as the room you and your best friends painted in junior high and the bed isn’t nearly as comfortable. You become Neil Armstrong taking that giant leap into the unknown - it’s new, it’s exciting, but it’s temporary. After a few adventures and accomplished goals you’ll hop back into your space ship and jet right back home. The moon is just a stop over, and yeah, it can be a host to some life-changing experiences, but you’re on a pretty strict timeline and you can’t stick around for long.

But in the short time that you’re living in your apartment, dorm, or house, there are a lot of ways to make that host to one brief chapter of your life feel more permanent. It may not be yours forever, but quality over quantity. There are ways to make your house into a home.

First, make memories. In that fireplace we lit a fire when the power went out and what was originally an inconvenience to our studying became a much needed s’mores-filled break from the stresses of higher education. On that couch we watched the Rio Olympics and made the funniest, most sarcastic commentary to keep us entertained. On that bed I cried to someone and in that moment we solidified the transition from close-friends to best-friends. When a house is a place where you grow as a person and as a friend, it becomes a home.

Next, decorate it to fit your personality and your values. Make amazing billboards to line the halls with photos of your closest friends that became family. Take the time to clean the bugs and cobwebs out of the light fixtures and put in a plant or two (unless you’re me and can’t even keep a cactus alive). Even if you’ll only be living in your house for a few semesters or even a few years, make it yours. Tell a story on your walls, just as the people who lived in that house before you did to. Every dwelling has a history, so make sure you leave your mark in your time there.

Lastly, fill it with people that you love. In college, more often than not what was once your private space becomes a social space. These are the people you’ll spend late nights cramming for midterms with and the people who will drag you out of bed for eight a.m. work out classes that sounded so much better the night before. These people are your family for the extent of time that you live in your house, so get to know them so that they'll remain your family after you move out. Get to know their quirks, their unique talents, and their little idiosyncrasies.

A home doesn’t have to be where you plan to raise your kids in ten years. You can find a home in a place you only spend a month in, a year in, or even a meal in. A home is a place you love because it feels secure, and a home is a place you fight for when something tries to take that security away. A home is more than four walls and a roof; it is more than the amount of time you spend within it. A home is a home, and honestly, there’s no place like it.