For many Boston College students like me, the end of the academic year means returning to your hometown for the summer. While summer is an ideal time to relax at home, travel, or work a job, it often means leaving behind your college friends for over two and a half months. When I first come home, I always enjoy the first couple weeks of hanging out with my family and high school friends but I quickly begin to miss my BC friends immensely. Now that summer is almost halfway over, I have begun to count down the days until I am back on the Heights with my friends and roommates.
Despite missing BC and my BC friends a lot, it can be really hard to stay connected with each other between traveling, working, or other summer activities. Here are some of my favorite easy ways to stay connected with your BC friends while at home for the summer.
Start a Book Club
If you are anything like me, reading for fun is nearly impossible during the academic year. Personally, I already struggle to keep up with the hundreds of pages of readings my professors assign every week, along with other homework and activities, which leaves me little time to read books for my own personal enjoyment.
With school out for the summer, now is the perfect time to read that pile of books on your childhood bedroom bookshelf or that new series you have been waiting to read. One way to get motivated to read is to start a book club with your BC friends. It can be a fun way to keep up with each other during the summer.
After the release of the second season of Bridgerton on Netflix, a few of my friends and I decided that summer would be the perfect time to take on the task of reading all eight books of Julia Quinn’s Bridgerton series. We decided to start a “Bridgerton Book Club,” and the three of us embarked on reading the series. After completing each book, we discuss our thoughts and rank the book, with our ultimate goal being to rate and rank all the books.
Since we are all in different places for the summer, reading the same series has made sure that we check in with each other as we debrief on and rank each book. It’s been a great way to keep up with each other despite our busy schedules and has kept us motivated to finish the series.
BeReal
Back in early February, my fellow Heights editor Ethan introduced me to BeReal, and since then, I have been obsessed. For those who don’t know, BeReal is an app that gives users a notification once a day at a random time telling you to take a picture of what you are doing at that moment. All users get the notification at the same time so you can “BeReal.” You can add friends and see what they are up to at the moment. Besides being a fun way to look back at what you were doing on a certain day, it’s also a great way to keep up with your friends who are spread out across the country or the world.
I have loved keeping up with my friends’ internships, vacations, or just daily lives at home over the summer, and it has made me feel more connected to them even though we are far away. I also love commenting or reacting to my friend’s BeReal posts when they are doing something especially fun or interesting, as it makes me feel even more connected with them.
Good Old-Fashioned Phone Call
If you are anything like me and are really bad at responding to text messages, calling your friends on the phone can be a great way to catch up. Not only do phone calls allow you to hear your friend’s voice, which automatically makes you feel more connected to them, but you can also multitask while on the phone.
I typically like to call my BC friends while driving home from my internship, walking my dog, or even doing chores around the house. Even if it is a short phone call, it is one of my favorite ways to catch up and talk about anything and everything from a funny story at work to beginning to make plans for the fall semester.
Go Visit
Last but not least, my final tip for connecting with your college friends is to go visit them. While this is not necessarily possible for all BC students, it can be fun to road trip or hop on a cheap flight to visit some of your friends in their hometowns. Last summer, a few of my fellow Heights editors came to visit me and some of my roommates in our hometown of Nashville.
I got to show them around Nashville, take them to some of my favorite spots in the city, and even show them around my high school. Even if it’s for a long weekend or day trip if you are close enough, visiting your friends can be a great way to explore a new city or state and catch up with each other before arriving back on campus in August.
Photo courtesy of MC Claverie / Heights Editor
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