Choosing a college is something most people will have to do at one point or another in their lives. Where I'm from most of the time it's pretty simple. (I'm from Tampa) You go to one of the big state schools in Florida or you get signed to play a sport and go there. Not many people voluntarily went to school out of state. A majority of my classmates seemed to go to the same university, graduate, and then move back to their hometown. I moved to that city when I was nine and never felt like it was my home. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I was going to end up going to college out of state.
My entire life has been spent traveling and never spending too much time in one place. I knew that the world was larger than just my tiny corner of Florida that I moved to in fourth grade. I craved to be anywhere other than where I currently was. I had the constant desire to meet new people, learn all I could about them, and explore where they came from. I knew that there would be people from different places wherever I went to school, including the one in my home town but I wanted to be pushed from my comfort zone. I started looking at colleges when I was in middle school and not a single one of the schools I seriously considered was in the state of Florida. My top schools ranged from places like New Jersey to California, the Virgin Islands to Michigan, and even a couple in Europe.
I eventually found my dream my school in southern Virginia. I never imagined how weird it would be to be more than a 20 minute drive from my mom. I went to camp ever summer but it was only for a month and I was completely reliant on my counselors to help me through any major problems I faced, which was never any larger than the fact that I ran out of clean clothes or that my tennis shoes got really muddy. But nothing prepared me for the nights that I would be up to my ears in homework, wearing my PJ's to class because I forgot to set my alarm and was running late, or how much I would miss running into my mom's room after a long day of classes, flopping on her bed, and ranting about how horrible classes were.
My first semester was spent adjusting to not only college itself but also not being in the place I called home for 9 years. I was used to waking up, driving the 30 minutes to school, going to Starbucks after classes to study, going to work, and hanging out with the same friends in all of the same places. I had a routine. I knew my city like the back of my hand. I was known.
The day my mom dropped me off was one of the most bizarre days of my life. I realized that I was on my own. I knew no one. I didn't know where anything was. I was trapped in the middle of nowhere. Luckily I learned that I wasn't alone. I soon found other people who were feeling the same way and just wanted a friend that were as awkward and shy as they were. My comfort zone quickly changed. I used to feel like when I was at school I was 800 miles away from comfort but the day I landed in Tampa for winter break I knew that it had flipped.
My home in the big city was no more. All I wanted was to be in my tiny town of Ashland surrounded by my new family, exploring our new found freedom, and eating way too much Sheetz. Whenever I was in Tampa I felt 800 miles from comfort. Going so far from home started out so scary but soon became my biggest blessing.
