Whether you're a college freshman starting out, a senior or grad student in the latter years of your education, at one point, you tend to ask yourself what things would be like if they went another way. You ask yourself: "What if I didn't go to a small college in the middle of a major city instead of a huge university out of the middle of nowhere?" or vice versa.
Let's face it: some of us either have a few close, best friends that you would consider to be literal siblings or dozens of acquaintances you said "Hey!" to at that wild party up in the sports houses you went to last Saturday night. Some of us have a healthy mix of both, but here's why having four quarters will always be better than having a hundred pennies. Think about your first week of college as a freshman. Your parents dropped you off with a few suitcases and a bunch of boxes and kiss and hug you goodbye before they leave you to your independence as you unpack. You then realize you're on your own in an strange place where you eat, sleep, study and live with people around your age. Soon enough, from either those ridiculous orientation or welcoming week icebreakers, you make some friends with people in the exact same position as you. Fast forward to a few months to years later, and if you're lucky enough, you remain to be extremely close friends with these people from the experiences you've all encountered in the wide range of aspects in college life. You love these people to death and there's no absolute way you could ever think of living without them.
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You have to remember, although you do have best friends that you grew up with and went to high school with, they do not exactly share the same types of bonds as your best friends in college. I'm not trying to say they aren't as important, they are, however they share a different type of bond with you than the people you currently and literally live with and share many similar yet different experiences as your hometown friends. If you're not so close to your hometown friends or have only a few you really have stuck with, that's perfectly fine as well. The friends you have in college will usually literally stick with you until you die, as I'm sure in high school, you've maybe probably stopped talking to at least 80% of your friends, not necessarily in a bad way. The difference is, that you're around your college friends nearly 24/7.
Anyways, at some point, you've probably met a lot of people down the line at your school, as you're always encouraged to network. Or if you're somewhat extroverted and social like me, it just so happens that you know a good amount of people in your school. If not, that's perfectly fine and sticking with your best friends is the most important social "thing" you can do while you're in school. They are your lifeline. Let's be honest, throughout your adventures in college, you've probably gotten yourself into an inebriated situation where you weren't as functional as your friends would've liked you to have been. Ask yourself, was it one of your four quarters or one of your hundred pennies that have walked you home while you couldn't? Or maybe helped you to a toilet and made sure you weren't choking on your own vomit? Or put you to bed on your side and made sure you had enough water to drink? Or stuck to your side to make sure you weren't going to be in, God forbid, a potentially dangerous situation that could mean life or death. Out of your one hundred pennies, not saying all, but at least one of them has probably left you when you could've been in a sticky situation. Either they ran for their lives while the cops busted a party, maybe they ran off with some other guy/girl just because their hormones are raging, or they were just bored, whatever. None of those could be justifiable without letting you know what they're doing, or at least not telling you what happened afterwards because that's not what real friends do. The best one of those pennies can do is probably leave you with someone they or you trust and everything's dandy. However, you damn as well know one of your four quarters would never do that to you, or leave you to your own devices.
Although I do have experiences with having a mixed group of best friends in a strong circle and acquaintances in a not so geometrical form, I can't say I've experienced the worst of what happens in our college campuses, and this is what I simply observe happening. Nowadays, sexual assaults on college campuses are at an all time high, I hear reports of students getting kidnapped, dragged into vehicles or getting robbed at gunpoint. Roofies and college parties go together like apple pie and Chevrolet. It all seems surreal but it's reality.
The best thing you can do for your own wellbeing is to be alert, stay close with someone you know and trust, and don't be stupid and put down your drink or take drinks from someone else that you're not really close to, you know, all the stuff they tell you at college orientations but not everybody listens to anyways.
Sometimes you may feel the need to make more friends and that's totally understandable, but try to figure who you can and cannot trust. At the end of the day, your best friends are the ones who actually care about you and your health. In sticky situations, sometimes your friends who are pennies may not necessarily be proactive for your safety. The point of this article is that I ask you to stay close to your best friends no matter what happens, because in the end, you guys love each other to pieces and always will.
Stick together and stay safe, life is like a swimming pool, always swim with a buddy.
