As an incoming freshman, I had the basic worries most other eighteen-year-olds had. I wasn't and still am not exactly sure what to expect. All the basic worries have been running through my head: the thoughts of making new friends, moving away from home, living in the same room as someone for the very first time, and most importantly adapting to city-living.
Growing up in a suburban town outside of Boston, I was pretty familiar with coming into Boston and how the city was. However, I was so used to living in a small town where I knew everybody who drove past me or walked past me on the street. Having the local grocery store five minutes away from home and living in a quiet neighborhood. Boston was the beautiful city I came to visit, where I'd go to a fancy dinner with my family, where I'd come if I needed to go to a prestigious hospital, where my friends and I would come for "a night out in town," where we'd walk the streets of Faneuil Hall, and where we'd enjoy the voluptuous amounts of food provided by the Italian festivals in August.
I always loved the city and everything that it offered. I always knew that someday, somehow I would live in Boston for some time of my life. I imagined it being later on in life when I had a career or when I would be in my mid-twenties. Never, did I ever think that that day would come so soon and happen in the blink of an eye. However, I honestly could not be any happier that it happened how it did.
Being an eighteen-year-old college student in the city has, so far, been one of the greatest accomplishments to happen in my life so far. Sitting on my bed in my new room looking over the Prudential building and Charles River motivates me every day that the whole world is in the palm of my hands and that the outcome of these college years are in my power. Of course, I wouldn't be in my cozy $14,000 dorm room if it weren't for my parents, (thanks, mom and dad!) But anyhow, in these first few weeks of college, I couldn't feel any more at home. The city has so much to offer and being the age I am, I wouldn't want it any other way.
At eighteen-years-old we tend to label ourselves as adults and we think that we know everything about anything and that we have now established who we are in life. Although that is true to an extent, being a freshman again, and this time in college has proven to me that I still have SO much to learn about life, people and myself.
Living in Boston now has given me the opportunity to meet so many different people from all over the world. In just the two and a half weeks we've been in school, I've met fellow classmates from all over the world. It is such a unifying feeling to know that even from all parts of the world, we chose the same school to help us chase after our dreams.
I'll be honest, I was afraid that coming to school in the city would take away from "the college experience" and that I wouldn't feel like I belong to a community. Boy, I was wrong. Every day I walk down the hill onto Tremont Street or right next door to my class buildings and am greeted with the familiar faces of my classmates.
Being able to be a college student in the city has opened my eyes to so much thus far, I cannot even fathom what the next three years have in store for me.
From,
The Suburban Town Girl
