I have come along way since being an 18 year old fresh out of high school deciding what college to go to next. Right out of high school, my dream was to go straight to a 4 year college where I could begin my journey to adulthood. I wanted to leave home and live my life like any high school graduate wants to. But with protest, I decided to go along with my parent’s plan and go to community college. Looking back now, I know the choice to stay home for two years and go to a local college was the best decision in the long term.

I wanted to do what every teenager wants to do, and that is flee from the house rules as fast as I could. My parents, like most I know, ran the kind of perspective in the home that “as long as you live under my roof, you live under my rules”. Being who I always have been, independent and stubborn, I hated this. Now, I know my parents did not just do this to piss me off, they did this because they knew I had a lot of growing up to do before I can be on my own and live by my own rules.

Besides the fact that the tuition at a community college is cheaper, I learned so much about school and who I am by staying home and staying local. I got a job, met more friends, explored majors, and overall gained experience. I went from being a biology major to an education major in two years of school. I experienced those classes and decided what I liked and what I didn’t. By the time I got to a 4 year college, I knew what I wanted to do; which once again I changed my major from education to marketing. While I got to explore my interests I saved money. Which is key in the long term because college is expensive. And not to mention, for the most part, the first two years is all prerequisites for the next two years anyways. Saving money and time and at the same time getting a chance to know who I was.

I created a comfort zone by staying home. Which most may think of this as a bad thing, but it’s not. See I got to find who I was without exploring a new location or state. I got to establish what I wanted, what I needed, what I didn’t need, and who I am as a person. Those two years before going away to school was all about trial and error. I couldn’t do it without my support system of friends and family being close to me just in case something backfired, and some things did. I built a foundation for my life that I could come back to any time I want when life gets in the way.

Community College let me explore my identity in the early stages of adulthood. It let me know what I can and cannot do. It let me see if I want to go into education or if I want to do something totally different. It let me be near a support system that I needed during my naive years. It definitely has changed me for the better. I’m sure there are downfalls to any education option, but I chose one that best fit me. And it helped me to get where I am today: A senior in college determined to be a marketer that wants to live life to the fullest and accepts all of the flaws and strengths that makes me who I am today.