If you’re a community college student like me, to some extent you empathize with the periodic feeling of wishing you had gone away to college.

Different things can bring up this wish: seeing your friend’s snapchat stories at parties every weekend, seeing people travel abroad, close friends making a ton of new college friends, living on their own, being in a new city…

The list can go on…and on…and on.

It’s taken me a full year of community college to completely understand my worth as a student past the stigma and my own growth that occurred while staying at home.

I didn’t necessarily want to stay at home, which is the situation a lot of students like me have been in. Whenever asked, “What are your plans for next year?” My response was always, “Just College of DuPage.”

That “just” was my quiet but blatantly obvious opinion that community college was going to be nothing and that I wish I had been going to New York or Boston or Colorado or downtown Chicago or somewhere else beyond the town I had been in for too long already.

Then I would receive the always promised, “Oh, that’s so smart. You’re going to be saving so much money!” “Yeah. I know. Why do you think I’m going there? Do you know how many people say this to me? Go, shoo, walk away, bye.” This was the response I always thought and never actually said.

That is why it took me two semesters to realize the importance of my attending of community college. There are things more important in life than partying all the time at gross fraternities where you always have a fear you could be taken advantage of. There are ways to make a ton of college friends without living with them in a dorm. It’s possible to get a solid education without being completely broke.

These realizations add together to paint a larger picture I didn’t see before—the maturity that I've gained by being home and the work ethic that's developed as a result.

Like a lot of recent high school graduates, I don’t think I was completely ready to move away.

Too many times I have heard of college freshmen having the worst year of their lives when they go away to college. Sometimes people aren’t ready; sometimes being thrown across the country into a deep unknown is the exact opposite of what you need to grow. Being 18 years old isn’t necessarily old enough to start a whole new life.

You’re alone at this whole new school away from all you know, but at community college, everybody you know is leaving you alone when they leave for school and sometimes all you want is to get out. There are many differences and many parallels.

Being a community college student has its own difficulties that students must overcome. You’re stuck. You feel so, so stuck in a rut that you may never get out of. There has been so many times where I’ve felt like a fish in the tiniest pond; trying every way to swim out yet it’s all out of my control. People you know so well are out creating incredible new lives for themselves and you have to find a way to do the same with the situation you are dealt.

The majority of community college students must work one or multiple full or part-time jobs while being full-time students. The majority want to transfer, so you must work, keep your grades high and make yourself stand out by involving yourself in diverse extracurriculars. Often times I feel as though I am more mature and have learned more than some that have gone away to college.

By staying at home and attending community college, I feel like I have evolved into an entirely different person. By staying at home, I have found a deeper, and truer, understanding of myself as a person. I have worked harder this past year and juggled more than any other time in my life—and I have seen it pay off.

You are going to an Ivy League school, or a huge university known for its incredible academics and sports teams and Greek life and I am here. I have stopped allowing this stigma behind community college to define who I am; instead, it makes me want to work harder. I have had experiences and met people I would never exchange to have gone away my first year.

Going away to college brings about a whole new kind of change and a whole new amount of hardship. Staying at home and going away can create an incredible amount of growth that is different, but both equally important.

Once I transfer away, I know I will be ready. Leaving after high school is an expectation, not always what people want to do. Once you stay for longer, the drive and the need to leave and expand yourself grows more and more. That’s when it’s time to go, that’s when you know wherever you go, it will be worth the wait and you will be ready.