The term is used in some colleges to describe students who are the first in their families to go off to school. Colleges sometimes try to make an easy transformation for these students due to lack of knowledge. Most of us are applauded and everyone tells us how proud they are of us! But let's be honest, it kinda sucks sometimes.

In high school we could not wait to get out of our hometowns and away from our annoying parents/siblings. But now that we are here we sometimes find ourselves looking at pictures from home while sobbing into a carton of ice cream. We start to miss our moms' cooking, or dads' weird phrases and dances. Although we do not miss our siblings stealing our clothes or annoying us in every other way possible, we definitely miss hanging out with our best friends we grew up with. And the worst is being deprived of our pets.

Being away from home for the first time, you come to realize Mom and Dad cannot be there to help you when you get sick. That really makes us miss home even more. And when school starts to stress us out, all we want to do is crawl into our beds at home, cry, cuddle our dogs, and wait for Mom to bring us chocolate or soup.

Let's not forget to mention, we have absolutely no idea what in the world we are doing or how we got here. Being a First To Go meant we had to figure it all out on our own, no one else went through it so how could they help us? SATs? Took me forever to figure out how to even sign up. Applications? Mental breakdown after mental breakdown. Financial Aid? Such a joke. Scheduling classes? Nope. The list goes on and on.

Being a First To Go isn't all bad though. There are so many ways to cope with missing home and everything about it. You start to make friends who become your family and they help you through all the hardships that college throws at you. Plus, we have those long breaks for holidays that also make us realize how much we really do love being away at school. Finally, if you are lucky enough to have a school as great as mine, you get to take advantage of the pet therapy the school offers during the most stressful weeks throughout the year. That definitely makes finals and midterms worth it. I mean who wouldn't love to walk onto a campus filled with puppies galore. There are also mentors and advisors that help you get the hang of things on campus and learn all there is to know about your school.

Although we have experienced the difficulties of trying to figure it all out, now that we do have it figured out we can enjoy the experience of college as we should. It is a great experience that we are very privileged to have, but overall the best part is we are setting a great example to our siblings and making our parents proud.