<p>I left for college exactly 30 years ago this week. I'd never really been away from home before, more than a week's trip with my synagogue youth group. I had my own bedroom at home, a car my father very generously shared with me, and am 6 years older than my only sibling. I was NOT (and still am not) a very good sharer! I was in a suite with 5 other girls, 2 to a bedroom. It was a handicapped-access room, so everything was oversized and spacious. It was on the 1st floor of a 3 story building. Unfortunately, everyone else on our hall was severly disabled. I am, and always have been, an advocate for the disabled's rights.... but.... I was 17, and seeing all these disabled people every day with their aides (one guy, a very nice guy, was so severely CP that he couldn't even use a wheelchair -- he was confined to a gurney bed. And even went to classes this way). It was just depressing. Here I was, this NYC girl.. in a bedroom with a girl from so far upstate NY that I'd never heard of it. I grew up on subways and busses.... she & her 11 siblings literally built their farmhouse by hand. Needless to say, we had nothing in common. I can't even remember the other 4 girls in the suite.</p>
<p>I was miserable. I called home crying every night. Every day. Every in-between. My portion of our 6 way phone bill was nearly $100 a month. If I wasn't calling home, I was calling my friends at other colleges. My parents have later admitted that (pre-caller ID) they'd just stopped answering the telephone when they thought it coul.d be me!</p>
<p>Somehow, I found a job at the campus newspaper. I learned to type, and began working 2 nights a week, through the night. Eventually, I became production manager for the entire paper. I met people I had things in common with. The opportunity arose for 2nd semester to move in with a girl I knew from HS. We weren't friends in HS, but, I figured, it couldn't be worse than where I was. Turned out fine. We stayed friends through college (at home, she lived 2 blocks away from me). I became good friends with my new suite-mates. I met other people in my classes and became good friends with him. I went out with friends, dated, the whole thing.</p>
<p>I still wasn't totally happy. But it was ok, and I knew it was what I SHOULD be doing. The phone calls home got less intense. Things got better when I moved off-campus Junior year, in an apartment with 2 other girls. Finally my own bedroom (a converted pantry off the kitchen!) I stayed the summer between Jr. & Senior year, to avoid going home to an on-again off-again relationship (which continued that way for 2 more years). Ended up graduating 1 semester early.</p>
<p>Upshot? No, I didn't make any life-long friends in college. Some stayed in touch, two were at my wedding 5 years after graduation. The internet has fostered sporadic contact with some people, but nothing permanent.</p>
<p>I look back on college, not as the best years of my life, but an ok experience, after a very rocky start. I'm still, ultimately, glad I stuck it out. It was still better than the alternatives. And I've never been a quitter, so telling myself that forced me to continually try to find new activities and new friends to better the experience.</p>
<p>Now.... did this cloud sending off my own son 2 years ago? Sure it did. But I didn't tell him, EVER! He had a pretty bad social life in HS, but things in college have been great for him.</p>
<p>I fear S2 (now a HS Senior) will have an experience much closer to my own. He has a great social life in HS. His best friends have been just that since early elementary school. But he's very reluctant to try things out of his comfort zone. Every summer at overnight camp was tough, until he settled in... usually 1/2 way through. A 3 week teen travel tour was a disaster. But he wants to go away to college. I just need to motivate him. Now that school starts tomorrow, and his summer fun is ended, I'm hoping we can delve into the essay/application process....</p>
<p>Wish me luck.</p>