By: Kelly Johnson
Forty years later, my choice of a dorm at UNC-Chapel Hill continues to benefit my life. That’s true also for friends who lived in my residence hall.
As you select where you’re going to live — whether you’re picking a place on campus or off, maybe you’re considering proximity to classes, work or your best friend at UNC.
And perhaps you’re thinking it’s just a year so does it really matter where you sleep during the school year?
Believe me, it does.
Down the road, someone from your dorm might offer you a job, become the love of your life, mentor and encourage you, or remain a dear friend throughout your life.
I know this and my UNC friends know this because we have lived it these past 40 years.
You see, I lived in Avery dorm for four years in the mid to late 1980s — all four years in the same room, in fact. Several of my friends lived in Avery all four years too and others lived in Avery for three years — and later regretted moving off campus instead of remaining at Avery. Decades later, my Avery friends remain among my closest friends.
From our group, we can count at least five marriages of fellow Avery residents, including one relationship that didn’t begin until long after college.
In more recent years, when the company that employed my dear friend, a suitemate, was closing, she went to work for a fellow Averyite who owned his own business. She still works for that company.
For me, having these close Avery friends here made the move back to North Carolina easier after being away in California for 25 years. Even during all my years of living on the West Coast, my Avery friends and I remained tight.
Since I moved back to the Piedmont a decade ago, our dorm friends have enjoyed a tradition of meeting up each year the day after Christmas.
One dorm friend in our immediate circle has lived in Europe pretty much since she graduated in 1990. But she comes home to Greensboro often, and stays in the home of her best friend, who was her suitemate and later her roommate at Avery. They talk daily on WhatsApp.
They and another four-year resident of Avery vacation together every year — usually a cruise. The three of them have traveled together to more countries than you can count.
About 20 years ago, I joined two dorm buddies for a vacation at the home of that Avery friend who lives in Spain. In two years, when Spain has a full eclipse, our Avery friends will gather there again.
Our dorm friends have celebrated marriages, the birth of children, new jobs, and personal and professional successes and milestones. We’ve supported one another through divorces, health challenges, and the death of parents and other loved ones.
We entered Avery in the ‘80s and early ‘90s as strangers. We left UNC with these dormmates as our lifelong friends.
Kelly Johnson is Communications Manager at ITS. She graduated from Carolina with a bachelor’s degree in journalism in 1988.