Many people believe that graduation means saying goodbye; goodbye to teachers, the school building, state tests, and to high school life entirely. However, this step in life does not have to mean saying goodbye to friends, rather it’s just a new chapter in our life. To get a better sense of how high school friends stay in touch after graduation, I interviewed several college students and recent grads. Some told me they still keep regular contact and meet up when they can, while others mentioned they’ve drifted apart due to moving, different interests, or busy schedules. These conversations showed that maintaining those high school friendships really depends on individual circumstances and effort. Overall, it was interesting to see how different everyone’s experiences are when it comes to staying connected after high school. Especially because after college, you stop seeing all of your friends almost every day of the week.
While it might seem sad at first, what is important to remember is that keeping a strong connection by putting in effort is the key to ensure that it will last. It might be hard, but that is just the effort that is needed in order to make sure that they last and you don’t drift too far away. I started with people I know who are currently in college such as my cousin, Maeve, who graduated in 2022. Maeve lives in Southern California but goes to college in Providence, Rhode Island. She was concerned about keeping contact with her friends, due to the distance, but said it was not as difficult as she imagined. However, she put great emphasis on the importance of “go[ing] out of your way to make plans” if you want to stay in touch. She also stated the time where she lost touch with people the most was during the summer before her freshman year, as it was a time of immense and quick change and many were unable to prioritize their friends. A recent AB alumni, Patrick Li, stated simply that “if you care enough to keep in contact with them, then you will”. However, he did state that he has an advantage due to his college being closer to home. Another AB alumni, Josie Hanlon, said that “the technology we have makes it super easy to stay connected”, but also warns that one should “not overdo it right when you get to college so that you can make new friends”. Overall, it is all about maintaining a healthy medium so that you are able to make new connections, while still keeping the old ones. To ensure I got a variety of opinions, I then interviewed people who have recently graduated college and adults who have maintained friendships from high school. My two sisters, Lauren and Megan Arnett, graduated in 2018 and 2020 respectively from a high school in Colorado and both went to colleges in Upstate New York. They both agreed that it is possible to keep friends from high school and that it is simply a matter of how much effort is put in by both people. Megan said “If you don’t want to keep contact with people, there is nothing stopping you from drifting away, so you have got to be motivated if you want to stay close”. I ended my research by contacting one of my dad’s friends who has known him since childhood. He said that the key to staying connected to my parents for more than 50 years was simply “showing interest in their lives and taking initiative when wanting to see them”. Across both groups, the general consensus was that connections only fade due to lack of effort. However, the anxiety of graduating does not end with trying to keep old connections, but in making new ones too. I asked the same groups how they made friends and all of them agreed, once again, that the key was effort. Patrick commented that “it was hard not to meet new people, especially in the first few weeks of college” and that he has not found making new friends at college to be difficult. Both Megan and Maeve expressed the importance of joining clubs as they let them meet people with whom they shared interests and acted as a social lubricant. However, Maeve noted that one should only sign up for clubs that they “actually want to be in” as there is not much of a point in signing up for “a ton of clubs that you will never go to”. Roommates are also a great way to meet new people. Lauren stated “even if you do not like your roommate, you can meet people through them and they are a built in friend for the first couple of days”. She also expressed that “the more open you make yourself, the more people you’ll end up meeting”, meaning that the more events and social opportunities you say “yes” to, the more people you will meet and the quicker you will make friends. Though graduating high school often evokes nervousness and uncertainty in regards to the future, the bottom line is that nearly everyone else is feeling the same way. Keeping a connection is not only a way to remember your past, but also to insure a life-lasting friendship as long as clear communication is always followed through. Use this knowledge to your advantage and be willing to put yourself out there and extend the olive branch of connection to any and all you wish, potential new friends and old ones, because you will only get back from others what you give to them.
