Education Homophily

Since coming to college, I have found it harder and harder to stay close with some of my friends from home, especially those who decided not to go to college. Many of those people have gone through teenage pregnancy and are currently young parents. There are fewer things to talk about with them, other than the usual small talk: what has been happening to the city since my last visit home and reminiscing about the old days in high school and even before. Sometimes when I am home and yearn for an intellectual conversation, it can be hard to find someone to have one with. The kinds of friendships I have formed in college are different from those from home. At Northeastern, I feel that my conversations with my college friends have much more depth in them. I also think that because of this, I sometimes enjoy/value my college friendships more than I do my friendships from home. This is not necessarily a good or bad thing, but I do fear that as my education continues to grow, this separation between my friendships at home and college will only become greater. Another thing is that I do try to form a bridge between these two different groups of friends, but seeing as it is hard enough for me to reconnect with friends from home, it is even harder for the two groups to even form an initial connection. A driving force for this education homophily is that I value education very, very much. Therefore, I cannot stand when others do not value their education. In fact, this is one of the reasons my most recent ex-boyfriend and I could not see eye to eye on certain things.