Ashley takes a break from answering questions about the freshmen experience to reflect on her first summer as an upperclassman!
Coming home for the summer after freshman year of college is the strangest feeling. Even though you’ve met your friends at school less than a year ago, you probably feel closer to them than you do most of your friends from home. At the same time, you definitely do not want to lose the friends that you grew up with. The first summer after college is the perfect time to catch up with high school friends about your first year apart.
The first reunion I had with my friends from home was surreal in a way because everyone went to college in such different areas of the country. Of course we were all ecstatic to see each other, but once we started talking about respective schools, forget it. The way I talk about UD is as if I’m talking about my child and it was the same way with my friends. I think that’s good thing though because we must really love where we ended up!
I found the different lingo that we all started using to be so interesting. My friend who goes to the University of Alabama now says “y’all” and my friend who goes to school in Boston has picked up the “wicked” trend. At UD even I picked up a few phrases that sound foreign to my friends. I also have a newfound love for country music thanks to my fellow Blue Hens.
Even though we’ve all certainly changed over the course of our first year at college, our friendship never fails to fall back to the way it always has been upon returning home. Despite our various new accents and tastes, we still laugh about the same things, treat each other the same way, and love spending time with each other just as we always have. After being home for a few weeks, I am confident that strong friendships can last through even the most drastic of changes.
~Ashley Bostwick
