My research topic is on the transitional period between High school and college, and how friendships from the high school era change. The reason why I am doing my research on this topic is because I have experienced this type of transition in my life, and consequently, I have lost contact with a lot of old friends, and I’m pretty confident when I say that I have changed so much since I last saw them that they probably don’t know me now. The annotations in my bibliography are two interviews that I conducted in order to view two personal experiences, one from the view of a sophomore in college, and the other from my brother, who currently works in Washington DC. I also conducted a survey amongst the members of my class in order to see whether or not they still connected with their high school friends. I also use the song Suburban War in my annotations because the song perfectly describes how a person makes friends in high school in a suburban town, and later loses touch with them.

1. Pollock, Zoe. Personal interview. 28  April. 2013.

In order to gain more information about friendships and how they change over the transition from high school to college, I interviewed Zoe Pollock, a sophomore in Emory who lives extremely close to Emory. Her experiences are extremely different from other people’s experiences with the transition due to the fact that she still lives in her hometown. During our interview, I asked her how many friends she had in high school, and how many she had before high school (childhood friends). The amount of friends she had in high school was 30 and she also had 5 childhood friends. Of those 30 friends, she only really talks to four of them, she said that this is mainly due to the fact that she had spent more time with those 5 people, and shared enough personal experiences with them that they continued to exchange stories over facebook about personal experiences. She is also still friends with her five childhood friends.

2. The Arcade Fire. “Suburban War”. Merge(US) Mercury(UK). 2011. MP3.

The Lyrics to the song are about kids growing up in a suburban town, the way they make friends, the way they grow, and the way their friendships end when they leave the suburbs to go on with their lives. This song is being used as a source because it is the main reason that I have this obsession with high school friendships. I personally have experienced the transitional period twice, when I moved from my home town of The Woodlands, Texas, and again when I moved from Panama to go to Emory.  Once you move away from your friends, you stop sharing experiences with them.  Due to the fact that you no longer share experiences together and that your friendship was relatively young, caused it to die.

3.Mijares-Shafai, Zachariah. Personal Interview. 28 April. 2013.

I interviewed my older brother Zac, who currently works in DC, about the friendships that he has had over his lifetime. He only talks to two of his close friends from high school, which is surprising to me because Zac was a really popular guy and I remember him having a ton of friends. What made him drift away from his friends was that he matured a lot more in college than they did. He likes to talk to them, but he says that a lot of the times, hearing about the misfortunes of his old friends is sometimes too much for him. He stays very connected with his close childhood friend that he met in his swim team, skyping three or four times a week according to him. He also stays very close with his college friends, especially his fraternity. I’m not sure if the reason for this is because he was a more mature person when he met them, or because it hasn’t been enough time in order to make that judgment. The alumni of my own fraternity are still extremely close and they meet with their pledge class at least once per year, and according to them, they all talk on a regular basis. So maybe it is possible that the fraternity actually fosters a closer and longer lasting friendship.

4. Mijares-Shafai, Cyrus. “English 181 Friendship Survey”. Survey. 27 April. 2013

I conducted this survey amongst members of my own English 181 class to see whether or not they still connect with their high school friends. Most of them responded that of the 30 friends that they had in high school, they kept in contact with 5 of them.  I also generally received the answer that childhood friends also keep in contact and are usually who the person taking the survey would refer to as their best friend.  The results of the survey are highly in congruence with my theory that the transition between high school and college marks the end of many friendships.