In many ways, summer is the best time of the year; no exams lingering in the back of your mind, no nippy winter chill and of course the persistent feeling of freedom. Although one part of summer is no fun at all. After practically living attached at the hip with friends at school, you suddenly have to face three months without them. But even if work schedules or long distances make a visit impossible, you can still maintain a solid friendship during the summer months.
Snail Mail
First off, you can go old school and send them a postcard anytime you go somewhere interesting. After all, who doesn’t love getting mail, especially when it’s from a long distance BFF? While you can no longer catch up over Starbucks in the Hub, you can take a pen to a postcard and fill them in on your family vacation. Plus, postcards make for a cool keepsake and can be tacked to a dorm cork board come August.
Why not go the extra mile? Send out a care package of all their favorite things, pictures together and maybe even a PSU sweatshirt if you’re feelin’ extra friendly.
PowerPoint
Even if you and your BFF(s) can’t ever link up at the same time, you can always go the route of making PowerPoint slides to update everyone on your life. Include what’s going on with your family, your love life, your friends from home, your job and however else you’re spending your summer.
Get Creative
No matter how well you keep in touch, you’ll miss little stories and changes in your school friends’ lives. To alleviate this, keep a journal or take videos sporadically so that you can compile them into a recap video at the end of summer. That way you can show your friends, but also look back at the past and reminisce in distant times. Your three months full of summer fun and memories will flood back to you. Be sure to include all the details!
It’s 2018 … Pick Up the Phone
If you refuse to hold a pen during the entirety of summer, 2018 technology makes it easier than ever to keep up with far away friends. In fact, just this summer, Apple introduced an update for FaceTime enabling a call with up to 32 people at once, which should leave plenty of room for your whole crew. Make it into a dinner or date night because talking to friends is the only real valid excuse for spending hours on your phone.
Junior forensics major, Sydney Rednour, is all about FaceTime, telling VALLEY, “I’ve FaceTimed with a few people. It’s always fun to actually have a conversation with friends and see how they’re doing.” This summer, Sydney went from Facetiming a few people to 31!
To ensure daily communication with long distance friends, start a Snapchat streak. Beyond keeping in touch, this also gives you a common goal to work on together: keeping the streak going! It’s almost comparable to all the stress and bonding of studying for exams together. Sydney tells VALLEY, “I mostly use Snapchat to keep in touch with people. Being able to see their faces everyday and what they’re doing makes you feel closer to them even when you’re very far apart.”
Even just a simple text or a call every now and then never hurt anybody. Just reach out and see how they’re doing and what they’re up to. It can sometimes become easy to forget about people when you haven’t seen them in a while, so put in the extra effort to stay in contact with them.
Summer might take you away from your friends, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still have fun with them.
