It’s the middle of August again, that means it’s time for school to start. For students in elementary, junior high, and high school that means an end to summer fun and a return to the daily grind. However, it’s not a total loss as they get to see all their friends again in one place and nothing much changes. It’s a new year, new grade, and maybe a new school, but all around, still the same people, still the same bright-eyed kid.

For students in secondary education, whether they are freshman beginning their studies or seniors coming to their end, the end of summer and the start of school is an entirely different matter. College is when the comforting monotony of home life ends and the exciting uncertainty of adult life begins. It’s an occasion of great sadness and incredible excitement. With every passing year and every passing summer this feeling grows more and more apparent and the week when you go back to school is when it’s the strongest.

It’s a bittersweet feeling arriving on campus and moving into the residence halls. Unpacking boxes and seeing everything you own fill out the space, an awareness of something begins to grow on you. Finally, when it comes time for saying goodbyes, as your family prepares to leave, it dawns on you just what this new stage of your life means and you realize that nothing will ever be quite the same again. For returning students who’ve gone through the process once or twice before, the feeling is even sharper as the difference between home and campus life has been put into stark relief by summer break.

But it’s not all doom and gloom, leaving home and going back to school. Unlike in primary education where the same jocks, same nerds, same flunkies greet you year after year in the same stale social ecosystem, college gives you an ever evolving cast of new people to meet, from eccentric professors to international transplants. In addition, whereas starting classes represented the prospect of another year of drudgery alongside the same tired faces, college classes are fresh and dynamic, filled with unscripted tangents and interesting new faces from all walks of life. There is also the satisfaction that the bracing independence of college life brings, granting many of the perks of adulthood while still retaining that protective shell of youth.

Facing my final year of college I’ve become well acquainted with the change that going back to school brings. After being home for three months, the reality of going back brings up feelings of both dread and anticipation in me. It almost doesn’t seem real that the summer is almost over and I am about to go back and it is downright fantastical to me that I’m entering my final year. While I am sad to leave my family and home behind, I am genuinely excited to go back to a school that I love, to run with teammates I admire, and to finish the education that I treasure.