How many of you maintained friends from college?

Currently on a gap year at one of HYPSM and starting to question whether this whole lifelong college friends thing is real. I love my best friends and we'll probably all end up working in the same city doing some sort of IB/PE job. So my question, mainly for the 3+ yr tenured workers, is are your best friends from college still some of your best friends today?  Assuming that they also moved into the city with you, and maybe even lived with you for a while. 


I don't want all my friends to just come in waves (friends from elementary school weren't my best friends in HS, friends from HS are no longer my best friends since I've gotten to college, etc) and would like to hear that we won't all just end up becoming best friends with people from our respective workplaces but maybe that's what happens. I know some kids will inevitably move away for a job or marry/have kids sooner than others but I just want to hear the experiences of others on here.

 

My best friends are actually mostly from high school, we had drifted apart (as you mention) during college and then some of us ended up in the same city and became much closer. I’m almost 20 years out from college and I’m still close to some people there but even closer with my high school friends.  You end up doing trips together, having your group texts, eventually people have kids and you visit them, etc. 

 

are your friends in HS also in finance? I would think more people from college than HS would end up in finance, naturally, due to class sizes. Of course, bond with HS friends I suspect would be stronger though.

 

are your friends in HS also in finance? I would think more people from college than HS would end up in finance, naturally, due to class sizes. Of course, bond with HS friends I suspect would be stronger though.

A couple of them are but not all of them, they cover a wide range of industries (law, education, etc.). Not sure if you think that’s an issue, we never really talk about work anyway and I don’t consider that important. 

 

~15 years out of college and my college friends are by far my closest friends, whether we live in the same city or opposite sides of the country. I have a few good friends from MBA but most of them feel like industry relationships at this point, not real friends. I've lost touch with most people I grew up with except one good friend from high school.

 

How do you think you maintained those? Especially working in finance if they're in different companies/cities

 
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None from high school. I text one guy a grade above me bc he’s a banker now and we were friends but not close. Hooped together at the YMCA growing up.

College I have one of my best friends I studied abroad with. Great guy. Friends with 2 girls from college but outside of that I might text a couple guys I was really close with in college, but we’ve drifted apart. I don’t party too much anymore, and we really just studied and did hoodrat shit together.

Was with my one friend and a group of the old buddies FaceTimed us. That was good to talk to them but that was the first time in 3 years besides some texting. And, of course, we were all wasted.

I’ve gotten closer to family members as I’ve grown older (think from 20 to 24). I’d say I have 3 friends that will hang out if I say let’s hang, and one of them I don’t even like that much but is friends with another friend I trust my life with.

My circle is small, but those in it are real friends.

 

I graduated in May and would say I’ve maintained 6 friendships, When I went home for thanksgiving went out w them. It’s not hard to do just have to keep in contact lol. I also feel lucky to have any friends after the relationship I was in isolated me from a lot of my friends and lost a ton like that

 

I'd say 75% of my closest friends are from college.  My fraternity class was particularly close, and ~50% of us moved to NYC after school.  Another ~20-25% have also lived in NYC at some point for grad school or moved here after grad school, so a lot of us have spent a large chunk of our post-college years in close proximity.  In my early 20s I was still close with 2-3 guys from high school but they moved away.  As for the remainder: still close with my 2 best friends from kindergarten, have 4 very close friends from work (we see each other outside of work all the time), have 1 very close friend who I grew up with and have become close with his best friends from law school.  From my MBA days I still see/talk to 2-3 people but in general that's not part of my core group.  I have a pretty large circle of friends and not just ones I live close to in NYC - I'm one of the people who takes time and effort to go visit people who've moved away (I take multiple weekend trips to cities around the US every year to see friends).  

 

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