One of my biggest pet peeves is when people from my hometown of Arlington, Mass. say that they’re from Boston. Sure, you might feel like a Bostonian because you live so close, but you do not actually live inside of the city. Don't kid yourselves.
Arlington (NOT the T stop) is a suburb of Boston that borders Cambridge and is about seven miles away from Boston University. I can get home by taking two trains and a bus on the MBTA or by driving for about 20 minutes with average traffic. Nothing feels weirder than studying on the 26th floor of StuVi2 and being able to see the blue water tower near my house.
I get a lot of questions about why I wanted to go to school so close to where I grew up. Choosing BU had nothing to do with proximity to my hometown; I was just totally in love with the school. However, I've learned that there are definitely some drawbacks to being so close to home.
My first year at college hardly felt like being at college at all because I was going home so frequently to work. I was usually independent about it and took the MBTA, but by the end of the year, I relied on my parents to come pick me up and bring me back to Arlington every Saturday morning. So yeah, I definitely saw my family more than your average student. The worst was when my brother would drive in just to use up my dining points and eat junk food. My parents made a point of coming in to visit because they were nervous about me living in the city on my own and they wanted to check up on me. I felt babied and I didn't feel like I was becoming independent whatsoever. I'm definitely glad I got an on-campus job this year so I don't have to worry about going back and seeing my parents so frequently.
Yet, there is a plethora of reasons as to why I'm grateful about going to college close to home. First of all, I get free food from my family and everyone knows that anything free is the way to a college student's heart. I'm pretty sure the only reason I made friends last year was because I would always bring containers full of my grandma's famous "Rabbit Ear" cookies back to college.
More importantly, it was easy for me to mooch cash from my mom, otherwise I wouldn't have done laundry at all last year. All jokes aside, I feel incredibly lucky to have my family close by so I don't have to use FaceTime as my only method of spending time with them. And I have to admit, it can be fun letting my younger brother stay over and come to the hockey games with me.
I also love living so close to home because moving in and moving out are a breeze, I can help out my friends when they need a place to stay or a ride to the airport, I am so familiar with the city and its complicated layout that I can easily give directions (and more importantly, restaurant recommendations), and I am able to continuously support my favorite sports teams. I have to admit that I spent more money on Bruins and Red Sox tickets than textbooks.
