For my first summer on a college campus, I was hoping it would be a summer comparable to "High School Musical 2": all of my friends and I working together, days by the pool, some dramatic love scenes, the confidence of Troy Bolton and the wardrobe of Sharpay Evans. Unfortunately, the reality of a college campus during the summer is almost nothing like the movie I wanted to be in when I was in middle school.
1. Campus isn’t totally empty, but it kind of feels like it
Around two-thirds of my really close friends went home, some of them eight hours away and the others a quick 20-minute drive. It may not seem like a huge difference, but those friends who are 20 minutes away feel like they are in an entirely different state.
2. Seeing your friends becomes really challenging
There are two types of people who live on campus (okay maybe three, but I will get to them later). The two types I am talking about for now are the ones who work mornings and the ones who work evenings. If your friend group is anything like mine, your friends all have different work schedules and getting together with more than two people becomes an impossible task.
3. Some people sleep all day and it makes no sense
The third person I mentioned above seems to have "the life." We all know a few people who live on campus, don't take summer classes and work around 10 hours a week. They are always down to hang (while not spending any money of course) and everyone kind of just wonders how the hell they 1) don't go stir crazy and 2) how they convinced their parents to let them bum around and still be financially supported.
4. Your hometown actually looks really fun
All of a sudden, all of those "boring things" you did to waste away your summer begin to look really fun. Seeing your high school classmates go get $1 slushies doesn't seem so boring. What is happening?
5. Your shoebox sized apartment feels huge when you are alone most of the time
All school year, my roomies and I were quite literally stepping over each other, battling over clean dishes, begging each other to take out the garbage and praying for some alone time. This summer, two out of four of my roomies moved out and I realized just how big our place actually is. I have so much space for activities (Netflix and Youtube) now and I am not sure how to decorate my room with the lack of my roomie's decor.
6. A day off of work is a day wasted
I remember being so excited for a random weekday off during summers at home, but, now, living at college and paying a million dollars on something as basic as parking makes a random Thursday (one in in which your boss cursed you with zero scheduled hours) feel like an absolute waste of a day.
7. Being excited for school to start is something you never thought you would say
The other day, I found out our first gameday is only one month away and I posted a celebratory Instagram; yesterday, I went to the bookstore for FUN, and my friends and I are already planning homework and gym dates in between our classes that we 100% coordinated with each other. I am so ready for school to start, the busses to be behind and packed and my friends to be BACK.
Summer on campus has a lot of perks as well, such as freedom, friends really close to you if they live on campus, campus being quiet, freedom, the excitement of going home, freedom and oh, did I.. did I mention freedom? Yeah, that too.
