Don't Be Sad To Graduate: 28 Things You Shouldn't Miss About College

For current seniors, college graduation is just around the corner. This January marks the beginning of the last semester of senior year, which means there will be lots of heartbreak and sadness about having to enter the real world.

Someone once said -- and others continue saying -- that college is the best four years of your life. It's depressing to think that human beings peak between the ages of 18 and 22, but regardless, graduating from college is definitely going to suck.

While the prospect of leaving friends, the social acceptability of binge drinking at parties, and the safe bubble of "not a girl(/boy), but not yet a woman(/man)" is scary, there are lots of things about college that you definitely won't miss.

It's true that going to college comes with lots of new freedoms that your high school self never dreamed of, but it also comes with things that you will be glad to leave behind in May.

1. Cheap Alcohol

Having to buy the cheapest (and, therefore, most disgusting) liquor available because you are poor -- all the time.

2. FOMO

My wise post-grad friend told me FOMO disappears when you graduate from college. Right now, though, reminders of the frat parties you weren't invited to are everywhere.

Thanks to social media and the close quarters in which all college students live that cause you to hear drunken joyous screams from outside your dorm window, there's always that nagging feeling that you're missing something.

3. The typical going-out outfit

For women, it's a bandage skirt and crop top. For men, it's jeans and a button down. After college, you (hopefully) won't feel inclined to stick to this uniform.

4. People who are petrified of relationships that require any ounce of effort

Having to resist flirting with the attractive student in history class? Doing long distance (whether that's walking across the quad OR being from different states)? Not being able to anonymously hook up with someone new every weekend? If this is what being in a relationship entails, no thank you. Too much work for college students.

5. Dining hall food

Overcooked pasta again? Ugh.

6. Homework

Separating "work time" (weekdays from 9 am - 5 pm) from "relaxing time" (all other times) will be glorious. Homework makes this impossible. And whenever you take me-time in college, there's always that feeling that you should be working on something else for class. It sucks.

7. A sporadic sleeping schedule

Your first class on Monday begins at 9 am, and then your first class on Tuesday begins at 3 pm. No college student is going to stick to going to sleep and waking up at the same time every day, which means no college student will ever feel fully rested.

8. Taking tests

...Until you inevitably decide to go to grad school.

9. Ordering drunk Chinese five times a week

After graduation, you only order it twice a week. Hey, we've all got to grow up sometime.

10. Reading things you don't want to read

You won't have to feel guilty for reading Elite Daily instead of reading your Chaucer assignment.

11. Freshmen

Also known as teenagers who think they know everything who live too closely to you.

12. Cliques and bitches

Yes, traveling in hordes and having to deal with cliquey bitches happens in college. There are lots of group outings -- to parties, to bars, to meals in the dining hall -- which means, by nature, you probably have had to hang out with people you don't like within your group. For some reason, it's far more difficult to do your own thing in college than it is in the real world.

13. High chances of rape

Rape statistics specifically in college are frighteningly high. Frat brothers are three times more likely to rape than average males. One in five women is sexually assaulted on college campuses.

14. Hasty plan-making

It's Friday at 5 pm, and you text your entire address book to get plans for tonight. Not a single person knows a party. It isn't until 10:30 pm that someone finally has a location, at which point you don't even know if you feel like going out anymore. The art of planning is lost in college.

15. Living in dorms

There's nothing like living in a place with kitchen cabinets that have been growing mold since 1980, carpets that have never been steamed, and corners of bathrooms that have accumulated decades' worth of dust and dead cockroaches. And the grey concrete walls add a really homey touch.

16. The higher likelihood of your night being sh*tty

Think about it: When you graduate, you have to put in more effort to see friends, since you all don't live in the same building anymore.

If you have to make an effort, then it probably means you won't settle for a sh*tty time. Instead, you will put energy into stuff that will be worth putting energy into, which means you're more likely to have fun when you go out.

17. Not making money

This is a given. And if you do have a job in college, you're probably only making $30 a week, which doesn't really help when you're going to the bars three nights in a row and would like to order something besides a $3 Narragansett.

18. Greek life, if you aren't in Greek life

No more feeling inferior to the fit, peppy and overly-school-spirited exclusivity of it all.

19. Grades

And having to maintain them, or else.

20. Seeing the same people over and over again when you go out to the same places over and over again

It gets repetitive.

21. Those last 10 pounds you just can't seem to lose

What is it about college that makes us much fatter than we've ever been? Oh, right, perhaps it's the binge drinking, unhealthy dining hall food, and terrible sleeping patterns.

22. Not really being considered an adult

Nobody takes you seriously until you graduate and enter the real world. Until then, you're still a kid.

23. A true lack of privacy

Whether it's your roommates, suite mates, or friends who live in your building constantly barging in and out, running into people everywhere you go on campus, or feeling vaguely guilty for choosing not to be social one day, college is designed to ensure that you never, ever have privacy.

24. People thinking something is wrong if you don't go out

You really, really just don't feel like going to another anonymous frat party tonight. This doesn't mean you're upset, but in college, that's just how it's interpreted.

25. Jungle juice

A mixture of fruit punch and 10 different types of alcohol do not a great drink make.

26. Textbooks

Spending $200 on the book your professor wrote for his class that you're already paying thousands for is the biggest waste of money and unnecessarily egomaniacal endeavor ever.

27. Academic competition

Academic competition is in a whole other playing field from regular competition. While it's good to compete to an extent, college-level competition is toxic. There's so much pressure to do well to reach some arbitrary next step, even if you aren't planning on going to grad school.

In general, whenever there's a school environment, there's a Hermione (or 100) who makes you feel like sh*t about your grades and lack of leadership positions. This just continues in college.

28. How difficult it is to date

There's this false notion that it's really easy to meet the love of your life in college. I don't know where this idea came from, but it's not true. College dating is hard. It's probably because people in college don't really like to "date" at all. See #4.