When I decided to go to school over a thousand miles away from home (1,707.7 to be exact), I knew there would be certain drawbacks but also plenty of perks. Some things, like how much I really miss home, I underestimated, while others, like the limited amount of restaurant choices in town of under five thousand are not as bad as I thought they would be.
Pro: Getting to experience new people, places, and things.
Con: Not having the comfort of the people, places, and things you already know.
I firmly believe that change is a positive thing, but from friends to restaurants to the landscape, it’s hard to adjust. I grew up with mountains literally always on the horizon, and I sometimes find myself looking out and searching for them and the comfort they brought me back home.
Pro: You’re no longer living with your parents and are (mostly) free of their physical presence and control.
Con: They aren’t there to support you when you mess up (as they warned you would).
The fact that my mom isn’t around to make sure I take her advice is a curse and a blessing. I can make my own decisions, but they are not always the right ones, and although my mom isn’t physically here, she’s always ready to say “I told you so” nonetheless.
Pro: Your parents aren’t there to control what you spend your money on.
Con: This causes you to often make impulse purchases that you might later regret.
I’ll admit that I didn’t necessarily need three different pairs of chelsea boots, but in the moment without someone there to stop me I felt like I did.
Pro: Meeting all kinds of new people from all over the country.
Con: Losing touch with old friends.
Catching up with some of my old friends makes me think they are just reliving high school; people who have been friends since middle school are rooming together and they regularly attend sporting events at our old school. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that, but that’s not at all what I wanted, which is why I chose a school so far away, but it makes it so much harder to consistently keep in touch with friends when they’re in a different time zone as you.
Pro: No curfew or really any restrictions about where and when you do mostly anything.
Con: When you go back home that curfew is reintroduced.
Having no one around to make you go to class is a dangerous thing. So is the fact that no one is around to remind you that more than four hours of sleep a night is necessary. And when you go back home after adjusting to not having anyone monitoring you to be met with a mom that tries to enforce an 11 o’clock curfew, it can cause some conflict.
Pro: It’s nothing like high school.
Con: It’s nothing like high school.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not one of those people who want to relive four years of awkwardness and supposed self-actualization, but the familiarity that comes from going to school with the relatively same group of people for years is something I’ll admit I miss. I’ll take the harder courses, new responsibility, and uncharted territory over braces and lockers any day, but I’ll admit the transition is not an easy one to make.
