Last year I went to Mizzou (University of Missouri), which at the time had around 36,000 students. I had always been pretty assured with who I was, never feeling like a little fish in a big pond, but this was totally different. I tried to find my niche and I did for a bit, but something was just not quite right.
A friend of mine from my current school came to visit me in the middle of October. We parked in my parking lot (a mile away from my dorm btw) and started walking to my dorm. On the way, a biker was approaching us and she did something unheard of. I had no idea who this dude was, she had no idea who this dude was, and she waved. That's right, her hand went up in the air and a smile popped on her face and she waved. He looked at her, then looked at me, and with a blank expression kept biking on. "We don't do that here, " I said back to her. Deep down inside of me, I realized how sad that was. Back at home, I live in a really tight-knit community. Roswell, Georgia is one of the friendliest places ever. I just love it so much. Waving to random people is the neighborly thing to do, but at Mizzou, nope. If you don't know someone you stick your nose to the pavement and keep on keeping on.
Second-semester last year I made the decision to transfer to a different school that was two and a half hours away, just north and across the Mississippi from St. Louis. While there was a ton about Mizzou that I loved, it just wasn't exactly the right fit in all the right ways for me.
Here's what happened when I got here.
1. Waving, it's actually a thing.
For starters, less than 500 people attend my school. It's smaller than my small, private Catholic High School. However, it's a family. You can wave to whoever the heck you want to because you know you'll get a wave back.
2. Walking super far, it's not a thing.
My longest walk here isn't even as long as my shortest walk there. Last year, for anyone at Mizzou, I lived in Schurz. I had a 10am at Geo-Sciences and when you look up the walk on Google maps, it says .9 miles. I literally had to walk almost a mile to get to one of my classes. The first week here I overestimated how much time I needed to walk to class and arrived about 10 minutes before everyone.
3. Your professors know you without you having to be a teacher's pet.
My biggest class is about 17 people. My smallest class is 6. The average class size here is 11. You're truly not a number and it's fantastic. I have spent countless hours in my professors' offices: asking for help, getting to know them, and talking to them about my future. They legitimately care.
4. You live in a large, beautiful house with about 40 other people, men or women or coed, depending on which house you're in.
Many of the houses on campus were designed by a man named Bernard Maybeck. I basically live at Hogwarts. It's pretty cool. Because there aren't that many people, you get to know your fellow housemates super well and it's fabulous. I live in an all women's house. (yes this is my house at school)
5. The connections you make are real.
What I mean by this is that in our greater community (we're religiously affiliated) job connections are legitimate. Because everyone knows everyone, the recommendations are written on your behalf are in-depth, thorough and super genuine. Your teachers and advisors are able to get you jobs because they actually know your strengths. They're not going to simply fabricate a recommendation based on information you gave them.
6. You get to be a DIII athlete just because you want to be.
Because the school is so small and we're a DIII institution, we have DIII sports teams. I'm a swimmer and to get back into the sport has been so much fun. We might not be the best, but the fact that we get to compete is amazing. I heard once that DIII athletes are the truest athletes because we do it for the love of the game, not scholarships (Thanks
7. You make friendships deeper than the Mariana Trench.
Seriously. Again, because the school is so small, you get to know people on an incredibly personal level. If you want to know someone better you can. It isn't weird for you to message someone random on Facebook or comment on their Instagram post. We're a community of really awesome people.
All I can say is thank you to my school, because it's the bomb.com.
