As your junior year comes to a close, it’s finally time to make the decision on the next chapter in your life: college. You’ve finished those dreadful SATs and sent in all of your applications; the only thing left to do is wait. As your parents push you to attend an in-state school ("Oh, honey, it's cheaper! You'll be close to home!"), the only thing you want is to get as far away as possible. Once those acceptance letters come, you let your parents down with the decision to attend an out-of-state school.

Move-in day is edging closer and closer and although you’re very excited, your nerves are piling high. You'll soon be leaving all your friends and the place you've known your whole life. You'll have to become familiar with a completely new place and make a new group of solid friends. It sounds so hard when you're picturing the worst.

Finally, the day you have been waiting for is here: Move-in day. You get to your dorm, huff and puff up six flights of stairs a few times, and eventually get situated. You're anxious to meet your roommate and everyone on your floor. You'll probably hang out with those people for a while, until everyone decides to get into different things. Whether it be with a club, sports team, or Greek Life, you'll eventually find your true friend-group. Those are the people you'll probably end up living with next year.

As the weeks pass, you slowly but surely start to miss home. Your parents stop texting you every night, and you wonder if they forgot about you. But you quickly learn how independent you are, and honestly, living on your own isn’t as bad as you thought.

As a couple months pass by, and December rolls around, it's time to go home for winter-break. The moment you step off that plane and finally walk through the door of your home, you'll realize how lucky you are to go to school out-of-state. It's back to screaming neighbors and whining siblings 24/7. You've grown a love for a new state and a new home, and realize that it sucks to be away for so long. You realize that the friends you've made so far are the best ones you've ever had, and you thank your lucky stars that you have them.

After returning from break, you make the best of the time you have left with those best friends. Come May, you'll be leaving them for a couple of months, and it really is tough being away from them for so long when you used to live right next door. Your parents set curfew and make you do chores again, and it sucks. The people and the places you were running through life with for the last nine months are distant memories for the next few weeks. As you're folding clothes in your parents basement, you realize how lucky you were to pick the perfect school, out-of-state.