If someone would have told me I would be attending a college located 20 minutes from my hometown three years ago, I wouldn’t have believed them. Along with that, when I decided to go to a community college for the first year, to say the least, it wasn’t part of the original plan. For as long as I can remember I intended on packing up and leaving Michigan as soon as I turned 18. Boston, Massachusetts has been a kind of second home for me from the time I was a baby. My mom was born and raised there and it has become a tradition to visit her side of the family every summer. There are plenty of great schools on the east coast and the appeal of living in a big city has always enticed me. Little did I realize, there was a great school, in a big city, to be found right in my backyard.
When making the decision to go away to a university or a community college there are many factors to think about. If I’m being honest with myself, I factored in my high school boyfriend and not wanting to be away from him. Looking back now, it’s crazy how much has changed and how differently I see things, after just a year at Wayne State University. If I can give even a small piece of advice to anyone, it would be to go with your gut feeling and make decisions based on what YOU want. If you think staying home at a smaller school for a year or two and then transferring somewhere else would be best, do it. If you don’t want to wait and you think doing the whole “dorm-life, no parents, full college experience” is right for you, do it. Bottom line is: do what you think is best and don’t let anything or anyone hold you back.
Coming to WSU I was of course nervous, anxious, excited, but most of all I was looking for something and I didn’t even know it yet. Attending a local community college for my freshman year did have its perks. It was cheaper, and I’d be lying if I said the classes were difficult. Don’t get me wrong, any kind of education is great but I felt like I wasn’t being challenged enough. It seemed like there was something missing. Community college felt like an extension of high school; I woke up, I went to class, and I went home. There was no excitement and I didn’t really make any friends, aside from those people you sit with in class and then never see again when the semester is over. I hit a point where I was feeling lonely and unfulfilled with my education, my social life, my whole “college experience”, if you will. The day of orientation at WSU I felt like everything was finally falling into place and I knew I had made the right choice in switching schools. I then made the decision, in fact a last minute decision, to go through sorority recruitment; and as cliché as it sounds, I truly and honestly found my home within Greek life. I encourage every single person that might be holding back a little from going away to college or holding back from transferring schools, if you have the means and the drive to make that happen, then do it!
