We all love where we come from, whether we proudly admit it or we deny it until we leave and realize we miss our home. Either way, most of us wouldn’t change our hometown for anywhere else in this world. That being said, when we start looking for dream colleges to attend in the future, more often than not, our dream college is not located right in our backyards. And those colleges or universities that are, tend to be lacking the major that we are looking for or lie outside of our price point. In my case, I come from such a rural area that I’d have to travel at least 45 minutes anyway to attend a college other than my local community college. Unfortunately for me, that’s not exactly my style, and since I had to travel away from home, I decided that I wasn’t going to limit the distance to school. I wound up going out of state for college, and I think that it was one of the best decisions that I have ever made.
One of the biggest lessons that I learned from traveling out-of-state for college was how to be an individual person that can take care of herself. A lot of problems can arise in college, problems that you would normally have someone else (hint, hint: Dad) help you out with, but since I decided to attend a school almost three and a half hours away from home, I was a little out of luck and had to learn how to do things for myself. This includes how to keep up maintenance for my car and how to manage my money so that it lasts through the expensive trials of college life. Going to school farther away from home also requires one to make some new friends and break out of their self-conscious little shell. Im not one that normally steps up to meet new people, but when you go to a university where you literally know nobody, you have to be at least a little willing to meet new people. That being said, I’m still stuck somewhere between child and adult and am working my way more toward the latter end.
Traveling to a new place in pursuit of a higher education revealed what others really believe about where I come from. Many people form opinions based on what they’ve heard, rather than what they have experienced, so I’ve heard so many off-the-wall ideas about Maryland that are so far from the truth it’s almost laughable. Through those misconceptions, arises the opportunity to teach others about the history and lifestyle of Maryland. Going to school in Pennsylvania, a land-locked state, there are a lot of people that don’t understand the impact of being constantly surrounded by water and how that affects nearly every aspect of life for Maryland residents. There are traditions where I am from, such as Fair Day, when the county fair is in town and public school students have off of school for the day. There are many times that I mention this event and people look at me like I’m crazy because I have off school once a year to go to the fair, but in reality, this whole tradition is to support the community agriculture and as a scholarship opportunity for high school students. There are deeper meanings to activities that non-participating parties just do not understand.
