As a puzzled high school senior, I was desperate to get away from home and begin what everyone would say would be the best years of my life.

Growing up with parents who were overbearing can take a toll on the route you want to take in life, and I can attest that it truly clouds your vision as you await a newfound freedom. With that being said, I knew they only ever wanted the best for me. As I watched everyone go through the SAT’s, applications, and eventually decision time, I felt overwhelmed by my choices: where I would spend these so-called great years, and where I would eventually meet my lifelong friends.

Being so young, naïve, and desperate to explore the independent life, I settled on Montclair State and never even thought to apply to the school I find myself in now, still something I regret to this day. I wanted to be close enough so that I could go home and maintain the new relationship I had just gotten into yet still far enough so that I could feel like I was finally an adult. The fall of 2015 quickly approached, and everyone was off to their school of choice; however, I couldn’t help but feel like I made the wrong decision during the car ride there due to my lack of excitement. I felt sad and spent my days crying as move-in day approached, something I brushed off and considered normal for someone who had spent their whole life on a timer.

I wish I had known then that those feelings were never going to go away at the school I had settled on.

I had never fallen in love with that school in the first place and ultimately made a rash decision as an effort to get back at my parents. My freshman year was based off a rapid 500 dollar deposit and the pressure from my close friends who had such a clear path. To say the least, this year was easily one of the worst years of my life.

The school embodied everything that I hated. It was small, whereas I liked big schools, and it was quiet, while I fell in love with the rowdiness of college elsewhere. I don’t like to blame seventeen-year-old me as I truly did not know what environment I would blossom in, and I didn’t find that to be my focus at the time, either. Football games were smaller than my high school ones (not to mention, we always lost). While some people look for these qualities as they eliminate their choices, there was nothing special about this school that gave me the kind of crazy pride I have now.

During my time at Montclair, I would visit my friends here at Rutgers, and I always found myself having the time of life and feeling absolutely exhilarated by how big this school was and how diverse it was that I couldn’t find anywhere else. When I finally transferred here as a sophomore, Rutgers didn’t disappoint; I found my niche here, and I couldn’t be happier and more grateful that things didn’t work out at my old school. And so, I packed my bags and left my strange roommate, the only two friends I had made in the whole year, and the awful food that left me 15 pounds lighter instead of heavier.

And while we still lose every game (still love ya Rutgers!), I wouldn’t want to be anything but a Scarlet Knight.