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Starting new relationships was the greatest challenge when making the transition to college. The friendships that I made in high school were great and leaving them in the summer was one of the hardest things. The first few weeks I found myself comparing new people I met to the friends I had at home. As bad as it sounds, I put a standard up. I was trying to find a group of people that replicated my friends back home, but I knew it was not possible. I realized that I needed to create new relationships with people for who they are rather than how the compare.

I think I found this the greatest challenge of my transition because I felt that if I let go then the relationships at home would not be what they once were. But new relationships did not mean I had to let go of the old ones. This realization helped me overcome this challenge. I was not the only one creating new relationships, but my friends were too. We were all in the same type of situation. This idea made it easier to realize new relationships are a great thing. I now have my school friends and my friends from home. The situation was never “out with the old and in with the new” but as my friends who did Girl Scouts would say, “Make new friends but keep the old”.