College.... For many teens that word fears them. Me? Not at all. As you can tell from the title of my article I attend Purdue University but what you didn't know was that I actually hated Purdue. Ever since middle school I knew the only school I wanted to go to was Indiana University.
To this day I don't know the exact reason why I was so set on IU. I think I was in love with IU because it was big and well known. When it was time for my brother to go visit colleges I went with and I was so in love with everything I saw. It was all I could talk about for weeks. Two years later it was my time to visit schools. Of course I went to IU first, I went down homecoming weekend and stayed with my best friends sister. This weekend was honestly the biggest let down of my entire life. I had this huge image in my head about IU and it was none of those things. I sat through all the information meeting they set up when you visit and I felt like no one cared that I was even there. I felt like they couldn't careless if I was there because so many people want to go to IU. After that weekend I was completely lost. I went home and started to apply to a bunch of random schools. I even applied to the school I didn't want to attend most....Purdue.
Purdue was one of the schools I told my parents I was never going to attend. My whole house was Purdue fans except for me. I never went with them to football or basketball games. I liked IU at the time and I didn't want anything to do with Purdue. I remember I took my 8th grade boyfriend to Purdue because he was a huge fan and the whole time I just kept saying I can't believe I'm here, I hate this place. I never had a valuable reason for hating Purdue. So, when the day came when I told my family I want to visit Purdue they were all surprised.
On the drive to Purdue I was actually kind of excited. I walked into Schleman Hall to check in for my tour and it turns out I didn't sign up for the right thing. I was freaking out because I was finally excited to see Purdue. The guy at the desk was completely understanding and set it all up for me and he even got a meeting set up with an advisor for me to talk to. First impression of Purdue was that this guy went out of his way to make sure I had an amazing day at Purdue. So my parents and I started the tour and everything our tour guide was telling us was so interesting to me. She would talk about her personal experiences and shared tons of tips on how to survive at Purdue. Second impression of Purdue the tour guide was so personal. After the tour we walked over to my advisor meeting and he was running a little late. They let us sit in his office to wait for him and there was 5 students sitting in there waiting to just talk to him. These student began to talk to my family and I and they were just giving us a ton of information about themselves and sharing all the amazing times they had at Purdue. Once the advisor got there he began to talk to us about everything Purdue has to offer and he was straight forward with me about how hard Purdue is to get into and gave my advice on my application. Third impression Purdue treated me like an actual person. When I walk out of that meeting I look at my parents and said, "I can't believe I'm going to say this but I want to go to Purdue." Ever since that day I knew I wanted to be a boilermaker and I was going to do whatever it takes to get in.
After these two tours I learned to not judge a book by its cover. For all you seniors out there don't go somewhere where you just like the image of the school, go and tour it and make sure you like everything they have to offer. See how that campus makes you feel. If I didn't go and tour Purdue I would've made the worst decision of my life.
