It is now time for graduates and their parents to pack up the dorm room and head back home. Residence has been their home for at least three years or longer, depending on the major. Over those years you have made a massive number of friends and some very close relationships. Packing up a room is the easy part; leaving your friends will be the hardest!
Here are a few suggestions to help along the way:
- the week before leaving have a common room party or afternoon tea
- on a bulletin board or blackboard post your email address if you want to be contacted
- ask for home addresses and phone numbers also in case you travel or need to reach them
- make arrangements to meet every two to five years at the campus or a nearest city location
- have your copies of the yearbook to be signed by your friends and favorite professors
- make a video of everyone at the party, and allow each one to say goodbye into the video
- make copies of the video onto a DVD and send out to your friends for posterity
- as you pack up your room, give a little something of yourself to your closest friends
- pick out a scarf or a hat or a bracelet or something they have admired and wrap it up
- make sure you take time for a coffee or a lunch with the gang before leaving
- take snap shots of your friends, dorm room and campus to put into a scrap book
- if you are going to live in another city separate from your parents or at another school let your friends know
- have a good cry or a hug and let them know how precious they are!