Huffington Post College
8.16.15 | Lynda Bekore
Because many of my friends are, like me, the parents of soon-to-be or current college students, my Facebook feed is officially on college-tips overload: Things Nobody Tells You About Freshman Year; How To Avoid The Freshman Fifteen; Advice For My Son/Daughter Leaving For College; Don't Forget To Pack...(fill in the blank), and so on. The advice is all good, all completely spot-on, and all necessary, but as with most well-meaning advice to teenagers, will almost certainly be met with a collective eye roll.
I'd like to offer an alternate perspective to the "don't skip class/get lots of sleep/join a club/make new friends" well-meaning parents. Here are a few tips that you might consider offering your future collegian -- some of which I know for a fact work, some I wish I had been told when I went to college, and all of which probably will make you shriek in horror but will guarantee your child's attention.
Old advice: You're now one of many thousands on campus, instead of one of hundreds (or fewer) in high school, but if you just be yourself, eventually you'll make new friends.
New advice: Be more than your old self -- let your freak flag fly.
Let's be honest. If you struggled through high school as anything less than king or queen of the prom, you're not going to magically become popular just because you're in new surroundings. You've probably been told by your parents that if you just be yourself, eventually everyone else will see the jewel inside of you (the one that your parents have loved all along), and you'll make lots of friends. Except that it's already been 12 full years of school and apparently nobody ever got the memo.
