By: Sarah Rance
NIAGARA UNIVERSITY, N.Y. – Many people tell you that you meet your best friends in college. It never really occurred to me just how accurate that statement is. Now, finishing up my third year here at Niagara, I realize just how true it is.
I came from a pretty small high school. There were enough people where we didn’t have every class with the same exact people, but small enough that everyone knew everybody’s name. So, the friend-pool was not exactly big. Regardless, I had a decent amount of friends when I was there. However, when I graduated, it wasn’t only from high school. I also graduated from a lot of different friendships, too. Graduating made me realize I was friends with a lot of people because, well, I didn’t have many options. That’s not to say I didn’t cherish the friendships. In fact, I am so incredibly grateful for each one and I oftentimes reminisce on the days I spent with them. However, they weren’t friendships that could last a lifetime.
College is different though. Even though Niagara is not huge, there are so many people that come from so many contrasting ways of life and have different likes and beliefs. You can find friends that you are genuinely compatible with, not just friends that are there and you get along with for the most part. Of course, I did make lifelong friends in high school, too. But the amount of them that I still have compared to what I used to have is shocking. I used to plan for some of them to be in my future wedding, and now we don’t even talk. Our only interactions are a ‘like’ on Instagram every once in a while.
The friendships I have developed in college even feel different. The bonds are truer, there are little things that they do or say that friends from high school never did. It might not be the same for everyone though. I know plenty of other people who still have a lot of friends from high school, more than just the two or three that I have. However, almost all of them have made just as many new friends in college too.
I am incredibly lucky to have had the friends I did, even the ones that I no longer speak to. Each and every one of them has taught me something about myself that I would not have known without them. To all my friends, past, present and future, thank you.
Niagara Wire 