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Now is the season when the melancholy chains of winter have

splintered and fallen, replaced by the sweet new smell of green

grass and perpetual rain. Snowmen and angels are replaced by newly

growing flowers and a herd of new foals in the ISU barns. This also

means, of course, that students are stuck inside diligently working

on final projects and studying for exams.

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I would like to take a moment and congratulate every one of you on

making it through another semester of college at a university —

even if your GPA didn’t make it, too. College is a big deal, and

don’t let anyone try to convince you otherwise. You are here

because you made the decision that furthering your education is

important and you feel that the money spent will be worth your

while. 

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You also have signed on to change your life completely.

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As freshmen we are bombarded with new, exciting — and some not so

exciting — adventures and opportunities. We have been given a

freedom never before experienced. We make new friends, but what do

we do now with the old friends when some of us go back to our

hometowns? Like I’ve said before, sometimes stories are expressed

best in the words of others.

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•“I’ve changed a lot since high school. I had a lot of friends in

high school and was involved in multiple sports. Now I don’t talk

to more than a handful of those people,” said Sara Schaubroeck,

freshman in chemical engineering. “College changes people; they

gain more freedom and make more mistakes than ever, and it’s your

college friends that are the ones going out with you every weekend

and helping you through hard times. Ties to high school are broken.

It’s a thing of my past and I’m more than glad to keep it that

way.”

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Many agree that it’s better to keep new college friends than those

of the past. 

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•“I made some of the best friends of my life in college, because

there’s so many more people here and you can much more easily meet

someone with the same interests as you. I don’t regret any broken

ties from high school. I kept in touch with my three best friends

and we see each other every chance we get, and that’s all I care

about,” said Valerie Gilles, junior in biology.

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•“I think the few friends you still talk to from high school will

most likely be the friends you have for the rest of your life. You

will always lose touch with some friends. I like to look at it as

they were great memories and part of a very important phase of my

life, and I will never forget them. And the occasional run-ins

bring back some great times, memories and laughs,” said Heidi

Gansen, junior in animal science.

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Some students said going away to college really teaches you who

your friends are.

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•“After high school ended, I found out who my true friends were.

The ones who made an effort to call me, who hung out with me that

one night I came back home, truly distinguished my friends from

people I just knew. I do miss seeing the same people every day, but

it’s a great way to find out who really wants to be your friend,”

said Laura Barnett, sophomore in history.

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•“I think Laura says it really well. Near the end of senior year,

you make a lot of promises to hang out with people you’re close

with at that time. But unfortunately, most of those promises go

unkept and you really find out who’s actually your friend. I’m

closer with one of my friends that goes to school in Maine than I

am with some that go here. I don’t think I’ll really rebuild those

friendships because I have more of them now, and I think my close

friends deserve to have my time instead,” said Joe Tisinger,

sophomore in finance.

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•Kayla Harvey, sophomore in elementary education, says, “I have

lost touch with some of my high school friends, but have remained

in touch with my closest friends. For all the others, I think it’s

okay we aren’t as close as we used to be — it’s going to happen

naturally as we form new friendships at college. As far as the ones

we’ve lost touch with, it’s fun when opportunities arise to see

each other and play catch-up, but I don’t see the need to repair

these ties.”

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•“Some [friendships] I have let end for the sake of sanity, others

to remove drama from my already dramatic life, and still others

that I do stay in touch with but sadly am not nearly as close to as

I would like to be,” says Jennifer Hodapp, senior in English. “I do

regret losing the friends I ignored for a guy, without realizing

it, and that was right after graduation, during the most important

time in a friendship that is suddenly becoming distanced. I have

apologized to many and tried to mend fences, but no matter how well

the fence is mended, it is never as strong as it once was. Neither

are the friendships.”

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The point is, friends, that it’s OK to start letting go of the past

and the people in it. They will forever have influenced your life

and that is not to be forgotten. 

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However, we’re all a little older, hopefully a little wiser and we

understand that high school fights are not as important as we once

thought. 

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We might be moving on and finding new friends, but this summer also

might be the perfect opportunity to apologize to those you’ve

fought with in the past that you still miss.

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 — Sarah Tisinger is a sophomore in journalism and mass

communication from Bettendorf.