As the first semester comes to a close and students make their way home for the holidays, they are faced with a new challenge: spending time away from their new friends and their new home. Personally, no longer being surrounded by my friends and peers has been a significantly bigger change than anticipated, and despite being happy to see my family and my friends from high school, I find myself constantly Facetiming, Snapchatting, and texting my friends from college. Despite the struggles that came with experiencing the first semester amidst the pandemic, some amazing memories were made. Here are three ways to commemorate the start of college, and successfully completing the first semester.
1. Make a shared photo album or Instagram account
Shared albums or photo dump accounts are the best way to put all your memories in one place. While you may have some memorable videos and photos on your phone from the semester, your friends have plenty of others that you’ll appreciate looking back on. By creating a shared photo album, you and your friends can easily upload all of your content to one place and be able to access it at any time. Creating an Instagram account with your friend group similarly organizes all your favorite memories in one place and will also allow everyone to add captions and comments for context.
2. Make a collaborative playlist
First semester introduced me to plenty of new music, much of which brings me back to specific experiences. By creating a collaborative playlist, you and your friends can contribute songs that will transport you back to certain moments in time. It’s not only perfect to listen to when you’re missing your friends from school, but by making one each semester, you will be able to remember songs and their corresponding memories as the years go on.
3. Make a first semester video
Once you have all your photos and videos in one place, it is always fun making a video of various clips from the semester. Throughout high school, I did this using apps like 1 Second Everyday, but have since put together mini-films using iMovie and Adobe Premiere Pro. Videos are a great way to commemorate experiences as they truly capture all aspects of a moment, such as what people were saying and how people were feeling. They are engaging, and illicit a genuine emotional response.