1. Realize that your tastes will have to change

No, you won’t be able to find that chain restaurant you really love or that brand of ice cream that hits the right spot. You’ll have to compromise at first, and eventually, you’ll be missing things from your new place when you go back home.

2. Pack light, because you’re most likely going on a plane

Nobody wants to pay those heavy luggage fees, so leave just a few things at home. Like your favorite chair, or your bed. I know these are hard things to part with but trust me, there’ll be a bed waiting for you there. It won’t be nearly as comfortable, but slap a mattress pad on there and you’ll begin to feel like you’re at home.

3. Get ready to do dorm shopping the minute you land

Even though you’re exhausted from such a long flight, would you rather sleep or not have bedding for the dorm you’re moving into tomorrow? With this logic in mind, run to the nearest Bed Bath & Beyond and get to work buying literally everything you’ll ever need for the semester in under 5 hours, then load all of this into your tiny rental car and finally head to the hotel to get some sleep.

4. Realize, once in the hotel, that sleep is impossible

When you get to the hotel, you’ll most likely run and jump into those amazing and luxurious white sheets. When you lay there for a minute, you remember that you’re literally across the country and in a few days will be all by yourself across the country. Keep worrying about this until you literally have to do something else to quiet your mind and begin watching TV or something, staring blankly at the screen. You’re still worrying, but it’s at least worry with some background noise.

5. Get there the next day

Here is the part where you realize everything is actually okay. You meet your totally normal roommate, talk to people on your hall and in your major and realize that you might not die if you are left by yourself here. You decorate your dorm room with all of the stuff you bought yesterday, andit begins to feel like more of a home. You begin to think that you can do this.

6. Saying goodbye

Saying goodbye to your parents is probably the most critical but also the most challenging of these steps. There will be buckets and buckets of tears, hugging, tissues. You have to do it, though, to be able to thrive across the country. You will always be able to talk to them and they will always try to come out and see your, or vice versa. This is not the last time you will see them, but it’s still incredibly painful. You got this!

7. Begin to love the place you chose

More often than not, you chose your dream school. While you may have had some major doubts about such a leap, you’re there for a reason. You hopefully begin to explore the place you’re in; you start to become a ‘local’. You realize that while the place you chose isn’t all magic all the time, because life isn’t that way and that’s unrealistic, it’s a place with so much opportunity. Sometimes, when you get really homesick, you wonder why you chose to do this. You may consider transferring, but then you realize that life is life, and it would happen anywhere in the world, even if you were back with the people you love. It’s not the place, it’s what you make of the place.