To the girl who will live in my room,

You will get here on move-in day, excited that the time has finally come for you to start college. It will start off feeling like camp as you see all your hallmates wandering around confused with their parents. You'll carry all your things from the car to the room, but it will take multiple trips because this is college and you won't be living at home anymore. Thankfully, your room will be on the first floor so you'll have the luxury of not having to wait for the elevator. You'll walk down the hall, turn the corner, and it will be on your left shortly thereafter. You'll open the room and initially be a little surprised by the white cinder blocks and blank room that I have left for you. You'll continue to haul in all your things and then begin to make it your own.

You will be in here every day for the next year to sleep, to study, to cry, to rejoice, to be homesick, and to love college. You will wake up in the mornings and make the trek from south campus to class. You'll learn if you want to take the U or the RU, depending on where you want to go. You'll learn how to take the P2P to Franklin Street, and that if it is a busy night you want to go to the HoJo stop instead of the Ehaus stop so you can beat the crowd. You'll learn the peak time of Ram's Dining hall so you know when to go, you'll develop a routine for Ram's gym, and you'll know how to get to all your friends' dorms. These are all things I have learned while living in your soon-to-be dorm room.

You'll be excited to go home for winter break after such a tough first semester of adjustment. After a few weeks, you'll be ready to come back to your bed, your room, and your roommate. Once you move a lot of your stuff back in, you'll realize how much you really did miss it and how excited you are to be back. Gearing up for the next semester, you take note of the adaptations you'll have to make for this semester to be better than the last. You'll think about everything you've learned and how South Campus has actually grown on you.

Your first year will dwindle down and seem much shorter than your first semester. With thoughts of a summer sun, pool days, and working to finally rid of your "broke college student" status, you long to move out of the dorm. But, as LDOC approaches and goes from being a few weeks away to a few days away, you'll begin to feel sad. The room that you have lived in, that you have slept, studied, cried, rejoiced, been homesick in, and learned to love college in, will not be yours anymore but will be someone else's. The sleepless nights and the finals pass all too quickly, and it's time to move out and return home. As your room returns to its blank, white, and now vacant space, you cry. You think of all the memories you had in the room, all the memories you had on south campus, all the memories of your freshman year, and it will make you sad. You'll wonder where the time went in disbelief that your first year has drawn to a close.

I wish for you that you appreciate every moment of your first year in this dorm room. It has given me so much and I would never have thought it would have been such a sacred, safe place for me. Remember to study, but don't forget to have fun too. Clean the bathroom and don't let it get it get too dirty because hair likes to stick to the shower walls. Vacuum your room because dust will find its way into every little crevice. Remember to report the broken, bottom drawer of the desk but above all, love this room as I have loved it and take nothing for granted.

Sincerely,

The Girl in 111