My Big Brother is Leaving for College

When sending a student off to college, it’s easy to focus most of our attention on the student who is leaving. But this is a transition time that affects all family members in different ways. We wanted to offer one perspective from a younger sibling.

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By: Rosie, age 9

My big brother is leaving for college. We won’t be able to visit him very often, and I’m going to miss him a lot. It’s really hard to imagine him moving, but I’m also very proud of him for studying hard and getting a scholarship. I’m going to work hard to get a scholarship for college just like him.

We have a special connection with each other, probably because he’s the oldest and I’m the youngest. We have a secret handshake, and we have a special “run-jump-hug” that is just ours. Once he wrote a poem about me and gave it to me for Christmas. When I was little he saved me from drowning in a swimming pool.

I’ll miss him playing music all the time. He likes mostly cool music, and some weird music. He has lots of playlists on our computer like Halloween Favorites, jazz, rap, classical, and Elliott Smith. He doesn’t really like any of my favorite music except Taylor Swift and High School Musical. We like to watch HSM together, and we know all the words!

Sometimes at night when I remember that he’s moving, I feel like crying. It’s a really weird feeling, like a mixture of being sad for me, but excited for him. I hope I won’t keep being sad for long. He said I can Facetime or Skype with him, but not all the time because he’ll be doing homework a lot.

I know he’ll miss me too, but he’s going to have all new friends and a new city to distract him, and I’ll just have mostly all the same things that are not distracting. Actually, now that I think about it, maybe it will be harder for him because EVERYTHING will be new for him and he might get lonely. I’ll send him some pictures of Spokane.

For my entire life, my big brother has always been here. I’ve never had the experience of him not being here. It makes me nervous. I’m really going to miss him.