Living in a small town for most of your life, you get used to life in small doses. You've literally grown up with most everyone in school, you can get pretty much anywhere in one quick 15-minute drive, and there's only one Starbucks and full functioning Walmart in town. Even a high school as large as Sumter High with 3,000 students... everyone pretty much knows everyone.

You can see why transitioning to a public university as large as the University of South Carolina, with more than 34,000 students attending, might be a tad overwhelming.

Movies and other media illustrations of students moving away to college never really show the gross parts of leaving home: the homesickness, culture shock, loneliness, and overwhelming feeling that you're way in over your head. Your grades are't great, you barely know anyone on your hall, and all you really, really want to do is to go home.

That's where Preston Residential College is different.

When I first toured Preston Residential College, I had no idea it was even a residence hall. Being right across from the Thomas Cooper Library and the Russell House Student Union, the center-of-campus location is almost too good to be true.

Built more like a home than the more recently renovated buildings like Patterson and Sims, Preston is a type of cozy that you wouldn't be able to find anywhere else, for a good reason - it's one of the only residential colleges in South Carolina.

What is a residential college exactly?

Preston Residential College is a special type of community offered to students. It's a residence hall, yes, but special class courses, student-led organizations, and even its own hall government are all coordinated within these walls. Students are able to live together, learn together, and grow together in an environment that fosters encouragement and community more than anywhere else I've seen on campus.

The murals within the stairwells are just icing on the cake.

Living in Preston has been more of a support system in this transitioning year than I can articulate within one article.

While it was difficult to meet people or make friends in lecture halls of 250+ students, I've been able to meet some of the best people simply living in my own hall.

While professors in my classes have been brass and hard to follow at times, the faculty within this building have made more of a genuine effort to benefit students than I've ever seen before.

Preston is a place that embodies not only the spirit of the university but encourages others to be the best versions of themselves.

College is hard. It's big, and it's lonely, and sometimes it seems like you can't find a place anywhere... but I assure you, if you're still looking:

Look here.