I was born and raised in Tupelo, Mississippi and always a diehard Ole Miss Rebel fan and I have had many many family members walk this campus as a student as well as most people from my hometown. Why wouldn’t I want to come here? What would steer me away? Well, a lot, mostly all of those had a factor in it.

As a senior in high school, I was dead set on not coming to Ole Miss. I wanted to go away – so I did, I went to Middle Tennessee State University but now a junior, here I am at Ole Miss.

I just couldn’t get away from the tradition, the Rebels, my real “home away from home.”

Now don’t get me wrong, I loved MTSU, I met great people, loved my sorority sisters there, the town, being so close to Nashville, I love going back to visit, but I just couldn’t help but miss Oxford and Ole Miss.

Coming to college so close to home was definitely something I had to get used to and so did my mom. She had every opportunity to come here whenever she wanted to. Mainly because she's so close to me and now I'm attending the college where she went too and also where she lived. To be honest, she’s the one who showed me where my classes were my first semester here which means the world to me.

So what wasn’t to love about it? Now, it's my second year here I can’t even think of why I didn’t come here, to begin with. I don’t regret my decision to attend MTSU first because then I wouldn’t have met my friends from MTSU, but I do wonder if I would be in the same place as I am now if I would have come here my freshman year. I have that “what if” feeling.

I have so many high school friends here, so many people who I have known forever here, I get the privilege to go home whenever I need a break or a good Friday jam session on the back roads of my hometown that I’m so familiar with.

The best part is getting to show my friends from here around my hometown, the ones who don’t have the same privileges as me to go home whenever they want to because they live thousands of miles away and most importantly I get to share my home with them.

If they ever need a home cooked meal or even a break from school, they know they can always make the drive with me to my home.

I also have the privilege of usually having those good home cooked meals really whenever I get the chance to go home. And the best part is that I have the option of when I can go, I don't have to schedule a 6-hour road trip on a weekend, I could go home after class one day if I really wanted what my mom was cooking that night.

Deciding where you want to go to college, is a big part of everyone's life. It's not always easy and sometimes you are torn whether you go near home or 13 hours away from what has always been familiar to you.

I have met people who have come across the country to go to Ole Miss and I will always have my 'not so far away' from home open to them whenever they need that home cooked meal, that clearing your head jam session, or just a break from school an hour away.