By The Editorial Board
For most of Baylor’s student body, this is the first chapter of life spent away from our hometowns and families.
With 35% of students from out of state in 2025, and Texas being so big, in-state students may feel like they are in a different part of the world. Adjusting to the realities of adult life can be difficult.
This homecoming season, we are reminded of our ties to our Baylor community. Whether professors and advisers, or roommates and friends, the Baylor Bears seem to be especially tight-knit this time of year.
Many of our relationships with peers likely started over something trivial. Perhaps a mundane assignment or lecture that felt a bit too long sparked the first conversation with a table mate. But before long, text conversations became coffee dates and short conversations after class turned into weekend trips visiting home together.
Ever so silently, we grew closer and closer. Strangers became coworkers and coworkers became friends, until those friends became our newfound family.
All the wins, big and small, will be celebrated with those people as well, like excitedly sharing when you did better than expected on an exam or when you finally receive a text back from that special someone.
In those seemingly sky-high dorm beds, if you roll out of the top bunk and fracture an ankle, your roommate will be the one to chauffeur you to the emergency room in the middle of the night. The inevitable drive to Dallas-Fort Worth might not be possible without a ride from one of your closest and most charitable friends.
Failing grades, breakups, loss of a loved one or some deeply emotional event will likely hit each of us at some point during our time at Baylor. Our community is often the one that picks up our broken pieces. Whether it’s picking up dinner, check-in text messages or coffee catch-ups, it would be difficult to get through much without the support of those near.
And of course, these relationships are a two-way street. Continually looking for ways to serve one another is a practical but charitable way to make friends. Raising the bar for your friendships, one act of generosity and kindness at a time, benefits us all as we navigate this new stage of life.
If you haven’t quite found your group yet, don’t fret. Developing true companionship takes time and often doesn’t come as quickly as we’d like. Joining on-campus organizations is often a good place to start meeting like-minded people with similar interests and perspectives.
And while yes, we all are hoping to graduate with a diploma and a career plan, something more important might follow us instead. That something is, without a doubt, the people who will stand with us in all of life’s most special moments. You might see them beside you blowing out their birthday candles, or next to you on your wedding day.
So for homecoming week, keep the theme of a home away from home in mind. While it’s difficult to truly replace where your roots are planted, a newfound home of green, gold and chosen family feels good too.
