Let’s be honest: the movies failed us. College isn’t exactly different parties everyday, and you might not meet your “forever” friends the first week like you had always planned. What the movies forget to show you is the utter loneliness you might feel because making friends is difficult and the times when eating lunch alone becomes your only option. Most movies leave out the part where you cry in your dorm because you’re craving the feeling of home. They forget to mention that sometimes the friends you left in high school unfortunately stay just that: old high school friends. And most all, they don’t really prepare you for the utter mental and physical exhaustion you could feel at the end of every day.
I vividly remember telling my mom not to expect me to visit often because I would be busy having the time of my life. I was convinced that once I got to college I would not even think twice about home. The movies had prepared me for a wild experience, where parties and friends would come easily. The real shock came when three days after moving in I was packing my bags and headed back home because I could not handle the loneliness.
So, if you’re like me and came in with high expectations only to be met with a whole different reality, I want to assure you that you haven’t failed. I kept hoping for the day that everything would suddenly snap into place, but it never came. Over the last year, I slowly came to the realization that college doesn’t have to be like the movies. I started to understand that these four years don’t have to be “the best years of your life.” It’s okay to go straight to your dorm after class because you couldn’t make plans for the rest of the day. It’s okay to go home every weekend because you miss the nostalgic feeling of comfort. It’s okay to never go to a college party because they just aren’t your scene.
The forty-five second clip you saw of college students on TV in middle school does not dictate the universal standard. It’s easy to blur the lines, so here’s your reminder. At the end of the day, movies aren’t reality. They will always be movies.