My mom hates when I refer to my apartment in Columbus as home. It makes sense - my family doesn't live there and I didn't grow up there - but it still gives me that same sense of home that my actual home gives me.
Home is a weird concept for a college student. You have your actual home, but then you have this whole other place that you spend most of your time at. Of course it starts to feel like home, how could it not?
If there's anything being away at college has taught me it's how to appreciate my original home and the people in it. I love them all and I wouldn't be where I am without them. But the same can be said for the people I have met at school.
Whether it's from living in the dorms, working, or joining a club, college presents so many opportunities for you to meet people and make your own home. It's an incredible experience that you don't get anywhere else.
After almost four years I can look back and confidently say I have found my home here at college. It's the people I'm around all the time and the places I frequent the most. It's the activities I'm constantly doing and the passions I've thrown myself into. It's something that I know I can always come back to and feel at home.
Home is my house with my family, but it's also my apartment with my roommates. It's my club meetings and wrestling meets in the same arena. Home is walking the same route on campus and noticing everything around me. It's even the conference room that I study in when no one else is there. Home is all around me and I'm constantly realizing just how lucky I am to be here.
To a college senior, home is wherever you make it.
