As the semester winds down and fall registration approaches, I look back at the classes I’ve taken over past semesters and recall a certain speech that has me thinking.

In my public speaking course, a guy talked about an unmentionable topic- making friends and maintaining friendships in community college. It seemed like such a simple and even silly idea but, thinking about it, it kind of makes sense.

I’ve experienced that students generally go to school and leave when their classes are over.

That’s it.

We’re either so interested in school and our own personal lives that we can’t be bothered to simply hang out with new friends off campus. Or we really just don’t care. But why is that? Why don’t we make more of an effort to sustain the relationships with those friends we’ve just made? We try to make friends in our classes but, after that last final, it’s like they’ve disappeared and we never hear from them again. Seriously?

In a Psychology Today article, Dr. Susan Krauss Whitbourne discussed how vital friends are to shaping us. Throughout her article, she refers to Carlin Florin, the author of “Friendfluence: The Surprising Way Friends Make Us Who We Are.” The term, friendfluence is described as “the powerful and often unappreciated role that friends—past and present—play in determining our sense of self and the direction of our lives.”

According to Krauss Whitbourne friendships impact life skills by making you happier, sharpening your mind and inspiring you to reach your goals. One point that I find particularly intriguing is that friends can give you a reality check. Our view of ourselves often differ from what others see. Luckily, we can go to our friends for more realistic advice. Friends can see things in ourselves that we are often oblivious to.

I’ve experienced making good friends in my classes, but being unable to reconnect when those classes are over is sad. One thing that does help with this issue are the ever so present social networks. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are all common media outlets for us to keep up with those awesome classmates we spent 16 weeks with over the semester. Something as simple as sending a friend request can lead to a connection for many years. If we try to make friends through the semester, we should try to keep those friends when the semester ends.

Let’s cross that line from being school “friends” to being just plain friends.