A the final days of August draw near, an excited buzz begins to form around college students. While the new freshmen are eager to meet their roommates, move into their dorms, finally move away from their parents roofs, and start this new chapter in their lives, the sophomores, juniors, and seniors are excited to return to what has so quickly become their second home. They count the days until they are reunited with their friends from across the country. They look forward to not having to tell their parents when they’re going out like they have had to all summer. They await the freedom to lay in bed and binge watch "Grey’s Anatomy" all day without their mom nagging them to “get up and do something productive.” Ah yes, college kids are, for the most part, genuinely excited to go back to school. I say “for the most part” because right now I can’t seem to find that excitement. I loved my freshman year of college, and Chapel Hill truly has become my second home, but right now I just can’t bear the thought of leaving my real home when I feel like I have just returned. Before you start yelling at me saying I’m crazy for not being stoked about returning to campus (like all of my friends do) consider these reasons why I don’t want to go back to college.
Friends
Yes, I made friends at college. A bunch of fantastic, super, phenomenal, friends whom I have gotten so close with so fast and whom I hope will remain friends for life. But no one can take the spot of hometown friends. These new people don’t know who my first crush was in kindergarten. They don’t know where we keep the cookies in my kitchen, or where I had my first kiss. They’ve never met my dog. They didn’t have the same teachers. There are things in your past that you can’t explain as people enter your life, but your home friends experienced it with you, and for that they can never be replaced. So how can you tell me your heart doesn’t hurt at the thought of being thousands of miles away from them for the next ten months?
The lack of stress
The dog is a metaphor for all your schoolwork
Summer vacation means no classes, which correlates to no homework, no readings, no studying, and no exams. No more sleepless nights at the library with a Starbucks in your hand. No more boring study groups. No more dreadful group projects with people you can’t stand. Sure, maybe you’re taking a summer class, but does that one class even compare the to terribleness of a typical 15-credit course load of a semester? I didn’t think so. So sure, returning to college means returning to partying all night, but it means returning to studying all night too sometimes.
The food
Pizza, bagels, Chinese food, Dunkin' Donuts, family dinner at countless restaurants, sushi/Chipotle/Panera lunch dates with friends on the daily. Ralph’s Italian Ices at night in your car with your best friend. Yes, please let me give all this up for dining hall food.
The weather
If you go away to school, you have probably had to adapt to a new climate. At home, you knew when to make the transition from shorts to pants and vice versa, and you could tell by the color of the sky in the morning whether it was going to rain or not. Who wants to go back to unfamiliar weather? I personally am not looking forward to going back to the heat in North Carolina. I miss my New York snow, though I appreciate the snow days when we get just a sprinkling. But I don’t want to leave my comfortable, moderate, yet defined, four different seasons. I mean who really wants to still be wearing shorts at Halloween? Not me.
Working
If you were able to go the entire summer without your parents forcing you to get a summer job, kudos to you man, and let’s have our parents get together for lunch. The rest of us spent our gorgeous summer days working… no wonder they call it Summer Break in college-it’s no vacation, that’s for sure. As much as it stinks to have to work, you have to admit making your own money was sweet. And hopefully you saved at least some to bring back to school with you. Yes, maybe you have a part time job at school, but you won’t be raking it in like you did all summer. You’re going to miss not being broke by the time October comes around.
Driving
Family
You spent 18 out of the last 19 years with these people. It’s still weird not seeing them everyday. It’s still weird not coming home to your mom’s cooking at night, or having your dad be able to bring your homework up to school when you forgot it at home, or going to your brothers lacrosse games every weekend. They raised you and then had to send all their hard work away to some foreign campus. As frustrating, annoying, overprotecting, and crazy as they are, you have to admit you miss them while you’re away. Oh and your pets are included in your family of course (I knew I’d get some of you with that part.)
So yes, I am looking forward to going back to college, seeing my friends, taking great classes, going out, and making a whole new year of memories. But there will always be a part of me that wishes I could just stay home.
