College can be an excitingly stressful time for an adolescent. You’re learning new things about yourself everyday, like the fact that you do know how to do your own laundry, and how much you actually miss your family. But it’s okay to miss your family because you can just hop in the car and have a home cooked meal in a few hours, right? Wrong. When you are an out of stater, college can be a bit trickier. Here are some of the pros and cons of being an out of state student.
Pro.
You don’t have to worry about your parents coming in to surprise you every weekend because it costs a plane ticket and takes a hike and a half to get to you. Mom doesn’t like it, but she'll just have to wait for Christmas.
Con.
It’s frowned upon to get homesick. If you get homesick and you’re more than a few hours drive from home, you start to think about the possibility of flying. Then you realize the struggle of having to connect flights three times. Then you see the price and cry a bit more. This usually leads to searching for colleges closer to home so you’re allowed to visit your family/dog every weekend. Not speaking from experience or anything...
Pro.
You are forced to make friends. Picking up and moving your life hundreds of miles from your comfort zone and your best friends can be a shock at first -- even for a social butterfly. But you’re finding friends that are willing to bring you food at 5am during finals week and they don’t make fun of you for saying, “the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell,” instead of “thank you.”
Con.
When all of your friends and roommates decide to go home for the weekend to surprise their family, you have to settle for your box of Cheezits and Netflix binging. Have fun being proper and boring. I’m not going to wear pants all weekend and there is literally nobody here to stop me.
Pro.
You have the opportunity to experience an entirely different and new culture from the food, to the views, to the accents, it’s all different and it’s all amazing. You miss it when you have to go home: the Honey Butter Chicken Biscuits from Whataburger, the word "y'all", the sunrise over Doak the morning after beating Miami -- a.k.a. when all is right in the world.
Con.
You have to get used to different weather patterns. I don’t know about the rest of the Floridians, but it should be in the 50s and 60s in November --not in the 80s. Florida humidity is a monster and should be avoided at all costs.
Pro.
You don’t have to see all those “friends” from high school that you can’t stand. They’re off doing their own thing, you’re off doing your own thing; they drop a like on Instagram here and there, you probably don’t. It all works out for the best.
Con.
You have to learn how to do your own laundry because sometimes your mom is seventeen hours away and you can’t bring your entire closet home with you every weekend. RIP to the once white shirts and everything that could now fit an eight year old.
Pro.
Making the other kids from back home jealous of your Instagram and Snapchat game because of the new scenery. It’s a beautiful day and it’s sleeting back home? Instagram. You’re at the biggest party in the ACC while the SEC is doing whatever boring thing they do on Friday nights? Snapchat. You see a double rainbow across the sky from on top of a mountain? Instagram and Snapchat.
Con.
Parts of your heart and soul are ripped out every time you say goodbye to your hometown friends. They aren’t a drive away or right next-door anymore and it sucks because they’re your people.
Being an out of stater was hard, at first, but once I figured out how to make it work for me I was set. I like being seventeen hours away from home because it gives me a chance to do me and only worry about what I'm doing and not obsessing over what everyone else is doing back home. But I would love being so far from home if I had a private jet so I could go home and see my dog and my family whenever I wanted to.
