Posts Tagged ‘before leaving for college’
7 Fun Activities to Do With Your Friends Before Parting for College
It’s the summer before everyone leaves to go their separate ways. Your schedule is likely jam packed with work, vacations, high school graduation parties, college orientation, and trips to Walmart and Target as you collect your college dorm necessities. This is the summer you want to see your friends before everyone goes down their own road, and you’re busy, busy, busy! The following is a list of activities to do with your friends this summer that will help maximize the fun during a short period of time.
Recollect the Good Ol’ Days
Many groups of friends could easily spend hours telling and retelling the stories of the times they’ve spent together. While some prefer to sit around the pool or a restaurant table discussing these tales, others might find it more fulfilling to document them by creating a scrap book, writing them down as stories, or recording them as audible files, so they can be shared months and years later. Recollecting and documenting your experiences together allows for everyone to feel like who they are, what they did, and how they relate to one another, matters.
Spend A Day Outdoors
Take advantage of the summer sun by planning a day you’ll spend outdoors. This may mean sitting around a bonfire, having a picnic, going on a hike, heading for the beach, hitting up an amusement park, or camping. Fresh air and sunshine tends to put everyone in a pleasant mood!
Throw A Party
While you and your group of friends are probably attending many parties this summer for everyone’s graduation, those parties often involve lots of relatives and people you haven’t met. By having a get together with just your friends, you’re having fun exclusively with your best pals.
Play A Game Together
This could mean board games, trivia games, card games, video games, outdoor games, or a sports game. Acting as a team with your friends will reaffirm the bond you share with one another.
Share A Meal Together
By grilling on the deck, preparing a three-course meal, organizing a potluck, or by making reservations somewhere nice, you and your friends are creating a family-like atmosphere where you can enjoy relating to one another as young adults as opposed to the high school and middle school kids you once were.
Work On a Project
Find something everyone can work on together with their own individual talents. You could restore a car, knit a quilt, start a garden, build something for your dorm rooms, paint a mural, adopt a highway, plant trees, write a book, or remodel a room. Doing something cool together will remind everyone that they are capable of great things, even in high school.
Find A Symbol
Just like husbands and wives might take comfort in their wedding rings, some groups of friends may feel more comfortable through this transition if something concrete and greater than them serves to represent their friendship. You could do something sweet and sentimental such as naming a star, or getting matching jewelry, or you could go the goofy route and keep everyone’s spirits up by symbolizing your friendship with a hideous figurine, or other ridiculous artifact.
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When Your High School Posse Parts Ways
You may have only gotten to know them this past year when you all started working at the local fast food joint, or perhaps you’ve all known each other since birth. They come in all different shapes and sizes, and they come with lists of inside jokes and rich histories: The story on how you first met, the worst fights, the funniest moments, and the best nights. Whether you’re a group of close girls like Desperate Housewives, a couple of fun buddies like Entourage, or a whole group of guys and girls with the same interest like Glee, you’ve come to realize you don’t all have the same plans after graduation. You may be going to different colleges. Some may go to college while others join the armed forces. Some may choose not to attend college at all. Others might be a little younger than the rest and still have the rest of high school to finish.After seeing one another on a daily basis, possibly for the last fifteen years, the thought of parting ways to continue your journeys individually can be a bit rough to deal with.
The following is a list of ways you can ensure that your friendships continue to last throughout your transition into a high school graduate.
Respect Values
If you’ve spent all of high school imaging what it would be like to dorm with your best friend at college, only to discover your best friend wants to go to a different college, or not go to college at all, you may be feeling a bit disappointed, a little scared, and perhaps even angry. Do your best to respect the values of your friends. While your plan might be the best thing for you and your future at this time, it may not be the best thing for your friends. Respect their decisions.
Expect Some Change
The relationships you have with other individuals are changing every minute, whether you realize it or not. With every disagreement, every social event, and every meaningful conversation, your friendships become a little bit different. Your friendships will continue to change after you’ve graduated high school, possibly in bigger ways than you’re used to. For example, you and your friends will make additional friends. Your friends may not mention tiny pieces of information on their weekly phone calls that they would have mentioned when they saw you on a daily basis. Most of these changes will be harmless, but will take some getting used to. If you understand your friendships are likely to change a little bit, you’re more likely to be okay with the changes as you realize them.
Design A Ritual
Define a day, an event, or a ritual that binds you together, whether that be celebrating a made-up holiday, going to the carnival together every summer, sending newsletters to one another, or getting together at a local restaurant every college break. Find something you’ll all continue to do on a regular basis that will enforce the closeness of your friendships.
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Four Things to Do Before You Head to College
Whether you’re graduating high school with plans to attend a local community college, or you’re leaving for the other side of the country, graduating from high school and beginning a new life as a college student is a major transition. It’s an exciting time, with many changes about to take place!But, before you dive into a whole new world, check out these four things you should do before you walk across the stage and receive your high school diploma.
Smooth Your Surfaces: Maybe you haven’t always been nice to everybody at school. Perhaps you have an ex you haven’t spoken to all year because things got weird, or you maybe you have a sibling you haven’t seen eye-to-eye with since elementary school. While there’s undoubtedly things you’re eager to leave behind, it does wonders for you and others emotionally to take this chance before you leave to make things right, so you can embark on your journey with a clean slate.
Define Relationships: Transitions can be tough on any relationship. Perhaps you’re leaving for college, but your significant other is still in high school. Maybe you’re planning on attending two different colleges. Before things get sticky, talk about your relationship. Will you maintain the relationship? Will you continue to be exclusive, or do you plan to see other people? It’s better to figure it out now than be surprised and hurt and heartbroken by a difference in perspective later.
Preserve Bridges: Identify the people at your school and community who have influenced you and could potentially assist you in your future. Your English teacher who wrote your letter of recommendation may someday request you sub for her class. Your friend’s dad who got you a summer internship may be the gateway to your first entry level job. Get the email addresses of these people. Send them holiday cards and updates on your life. By maintaining these relationships now, you’ll be helping yourself later.
Decide What to Bring, and What to Let Go: College is often seen as a fresh start. Even if you attend a local college with a chunk of your high school classmates, most people won’t know who you are, what you did, what you’re like, or what you’ve been called. Before you step into a new world where you’ll have to make yourself all over again, decide what’s worth bringing and what’s worth leaving. Bring your personal philosophies, your best qualities, your funny stories, and your dreams. Leave behind your awkward moments, your bad relationships, and your failed tests, because who you were won’t matter, but who you are does.
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Pros and Cons of Following Your High School Sweetheart to College
Here’s a story my mom told me:
Bobby and Betty Ann were THE COUPLE. Like, all of CutiePatootieville just thought that they were the bee’s knees and would be together forever. Senior year of high school was flying by, and Bobby and Betty had to decide what their next move would be.
See, Bobby wanted to be an astronaut. And there was only one school in the entire nation that offered a bachelors in astronaut.
Betty Ann wanted to be a crocodile hunter–don’t let the polka-dot purple dress or the rosy red cheeks fool you–Betty was a beast when it came to Australian wetlands. But, there was only one school in the entire nation that offered that degree and it was NOT the same school that offered Bobby’s dream.
So the couple compromised and went to State where they were both so unfulfilled that they broke up, individually wound up in prison for robbing banks (what a crazy coincidence!), and to this day dream about space and crocodiles–just look at their tattoos!
Anywho, that’s a true story. People warn against following your high school sweetheart to college all the time, and people ignore it alll the time.
So, I thought it’d be the best idea ever to draw out the pros and cons of this situation. If you have others, please leave a comment in the field below!
Pros
Something familiar
Going off to college is akin to moving into an alien civilization on Mars. There are new maps to figure out, new people to remember, a totally new academic language to translate…I can go on forever. Having your dude/dudette there to commiserate with you and/or hold your hand while growing accustom to the Martian culture can be very helpful in your transition.
He/She can introduce you to knew people
“Betty, meet Betty. Isn’t that funny? You two have the same name! You’ll probably wind up being best friends!”
Sometimes having your Bobby introduce you to a couple people winds up being so much easier than actually doing the bulk of the work yourself!
Avoid the long distance relationship
Sure, Skype is amazing. But, when you need that shoulder to cry on, you will destroy your computer if you get too much salty water on it.
College advice
If your boyfriend/girlfriend has already gone to college a year ahead of you, then they are basically a gold mine of information. Use them!!!
Getting to be with your boyfriend/girlfriend
Self-explanatory
Cons
Living in their shadow
Getting to college after your boyfriend/girlfriend has been there a school year often means that you’ll be following them around like a puppy dog for an undisclosed amount of time. Unless you’re comfortable constantly standing behind your boyfriend/girlfriend’s shoulder nodding your head as if you’re included in the conversation with his friend that you’re actually not included in, then be weary of a life in the shadows.
Not making decisions based on your needs
Following your sweetheart to college illustrates how much you are willing to sacrifice for that person. It could lead to making choices that actually hurt your goals and dreams.
Straying from academics
If you follow your sweetheart to college, they obviously take a priority in your life. Maybe even ahead of why you’re at college in the first place.
Stalled independence
Being in a relationship from high school to college with the same person can stunt your growth as an individual. A little single life where you make your own decisions for your future will make you stronger to stand on your own.
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