Almost half the student body at University of Rhode Island is from a different state. If you take notice, you would also see that a huge portion of these out-of-staters are from New Jersey. You can usually tell a girl is from New Jersey if you walk into her dorm room, because there will be a canvas hanging on her wall that says "there's no place like home" underneath an outline of New Jersey. You can tell a guy is from New Jersey if you're in his car with him for more than 30 seconds. But honestly, most students that come to URI from the garden state go through a lot of the same experiences. Here are 15 sure signs that you are indeed New Jersey born and New Jersey bred:

1. You tell people from Rhode Island what county you're from.

With your fellow New Jerseyans, it's common to say what county you're from. Unlike most states, counties are kind of a big deal in New Jersey. It's okay, we all do it, and the look of confusion on their faces isn't your fault.

2. Your friends from other states are tired of hearing your prom weekend stories.

It's very likely that the day after senior prom, you joined the rest of your graduating class on a trip "down the shore", where some unspeakable and crazy things may or may not have happened. But when you came to URI, all you wanted to do was tell your new friends about your adventures in the sketchy little motel you probably stayed in. Unfortunately, most of your friends didn't have prom weekend, and they just won't get it.

3. You say "mad" instead of "wicked".

"Yo, that's mad funny!" was commonly dropped in the hallways of your high school. But then you came to college, and all of the sudden everything started being "wicked funny", and you started questioning what else in your life was a lie.

4. You don't eat the bagels at the dining halls.

Or should I say, "bagels". Maybe the students from New York have some idea what a bagel is, but most Rhode Islanders don't take you seriously when you tell them that bagels are a lifestyle where we're from.

5. You bring your friends a Taylor ham, egg and cheese when you go back to school.

You want your friends at URI to experience the true delicacies of New Jersey, right? So what better way to show them what a great place it is than to bring them their very own Taylor ham (or porkroll if you're from South Jersey), egg and cheese on a bagel? Nothing says Jersey like our favorite breakfast sandwich.

6. You thought you were going to the diner after your first party at URI.

If New Jersey kids know anything, it's that a great night out always ends at the local diner. But when you went away to college you were faced with the reality that diners aren't a big deal outside of New Jersey.

7. You went to the beaches in Narragansett and said, "Where is everything?"

Don't get me wrong, the beaches in Rhode Island are gorgeous, but once you're tired of going in the water and laying out on your towel, there's not much else to do. At the Jersey Shore, you have boardwalks and clubs and actual civilization to entertain you for days.

8. You thought the Dunkin' Donuts "hot cup" concept was crazy.

The first time I saw someone put a styrofoam cup over their iced coffee, I thought my eyes were deceiving me. But it turned out that New Englanders do this all the time. This would never fly in New Jersey, because we move too fast to stand around and wait for a second cup.

9. You're not as excited as your friends when you order pizza.

Sure, it's good. All pizza is good, for the most part. But nothing well ever compare to the pizza from NYC or New Jersey that you're used to. I don't care how many BOGO deals Kingston Pizza offers me, my loyalty remains firm.

10. You went into panic mode when your GPS routed you to cross the George Washington Bridge instead of the Tappan Zee Bridge.

Anyone from New Jersey knows that the better way to get to URI is by crossing the Tappan Zee. I've never crossed the George Washington in under two hours because the traffic is slower than molasses. Not to mention, it's way more expensive than the Tappan Zee.

11. Driving through Connecticut is like running up the "down" escalator.

You don't know real pain or true boredom until you've driven through Connecticut. Don't be led astray by how small the state looks on the map. 80 percent of our journey to school is in this state, and you usually feel like you've entered a new life before you can finally say you've reached the Rhode Island border.

"What state are we in?"
"Rhode Island!"
"Really?!"
"No, we're still in Connecticut, you idiot. Now shut up and ask me again in three years."

12. You thought they were joking when they said the nearest mall is 30 minutes away.

The Warwick mall is the closest mall to campus, and even driving like a true New Jersey driver won't get you there in a reasonable amount of time. We're all used to having three or four different mall options back home, and most of them are within a 10 minute drive.

13. The traffic from campus to Narragansett on a weekday afternoon is a breeze for you.

The reason the New Jersey Turnpike is so famous is because of how awfully crowded it is. We've probably all waited hours in bumper-to-bumper traffic before, and people at school think the drive to Narragansett is bad...

14. Your friends from home don't understand why you love calzones so much.

In New Jersey, calzones aren't really a big deal like they are at URI. People don't really eat them. So when you try to explain the taste of an iZone chicken parm calzone to your friends at home, there's a disconnect and it's really, really frustrating.

15. You always have to defend your homeland when people ask where you're from.

New Jersey has a very negative connotation associated with it. The minute we say we're from New Jersey, we get an onslaught of general disgust from those who live in other states. But we're proud to be from where we live. Most of us grew up in New Jersey and it holds a special place in our hearts.

It's a place we're going to defend until we're New Jersey dead.