Last week, I met three first-year nursing students at an event on campus.
One was a commuter student. The other two lived on campus, although on different floors. They had met only a few days earlier, but they were already sitting together, talking and laughing with the ease of people who were glad to have found one another.
They told me they were enjoying their experience at Florida Southern. They seemed excited about nursing, college, and whatever might be waiting for them in the weeks ahead.
It was an ordinary conversation during an ordinary campus event.
But as I walked away, I found myself wondering:
Have they found their people?
Every new college student arrives carrying some version of that question, even if they never say it aloud.
Where do I belong?
Who will understand me?
Who will notice if I am missing?
Who will save me a seat?
Who will become part of the story I tell about these years?
We talk a great deal about choosing a college, selecting a major, attending class, and preparing for a career. Those things matter. But some of the most consequential parts of college cannot be found in a catalog or measured on a transcript.
They happen when strangers begin becoming friends.
We find our people in residence halls and classrooms. We meet them through organizations, athletic teams, campus jobs, study groups, and late dinners in the cafeteria. Sometimes we meet them at an event we almost decided not to attend.
At first, they are simply people whose names we are trying to remember.
Then they become the people we look for when we enter a room.
They know when we are excited, frightened, overwhelmed, or pretending that everything is fine. They encourage us when we are uncertain. They challenge us when we are wrong. They help us recover from disappointments that once felt permanent.
They see possibilities in us before we can see them ourselves.
They become our circle.
Not every college friendship lasts forever. Some people walk beside us for only a semester or a particular season. That does not make those friendships unimportant. Sometimes a person enters our life precisely when we need them and helps us become ready for whatever comes next.
But some relationships do last.
Years pass. Careers change. Families grow. People move away. Life becomes complicated. We may not speak as often as we once did, but something remains between us. When we reconnect, we recognize not only the person standing before us, but also the person we were when we first knew them.
They remember earlier versions of us.
They remember what made us laugh before life became quite so serious. They remember our first attempts at independence, the mistakes we made, the dreams we carried, and the person we hoped we might become.
They remember the beginning.
When I walked away from those three nursing students, I thought about my own people.
More than 40 years ago, I stood with some of them for the photograph accompanying this reflection. We were young. We could not have known where life would take us or how much we would change. We certainly could not have understood how deeply the people standing beside us would influence who we became.
We were simply living our lives together.
Looking at that photograph now, I see more than four college students. I see friendship, belonging, growth, and a shared chapter of life that helped shape everything that followed.
That is why I keep thinking about those three students.
Perhaps they will remain friends throughout college. Perhaps they will study together, struggle through difficult nursing courses, celebrate passing exams, and encourage one another through clinicals. Perhaps they will eventually stand together at graduation.
Or perhaps their lives will move in different directions.
There is no way to know yet.
They had known one another for only a few days.
But every lifelong friendship was once only a few days old.
Maybe someone will take their photograph this year. Maybe decades from now, one of them will find it and pause. She will remember that campus event, those first uncertain days of college, and the two people sitting beside her.
And perhaps she will realize what none of them could have known at the time:
That was the beginning.
Those were my people.
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