Today is the national College Decision Day, and now that I am almost done my third year of college, I have been doing a lot of thinking about when I first got here. I've been wondering if there was a factor that changed me in some way my senior year of high school when I came here for a tour. Originally, the University of Delaware was a sort of safety net. I can admit that. I'm from Delaware, I went to school close by, and it seemed like the school I had to tour just for the sake of getting it out of the way.

Without name dropping, I wanted to go to a school in Maryland that turned out to be a massively bad fit for the kind of college student I wanted to be.

I came for a tour after that and found that what I thought would be boring and a waste of time was actually my introduction to a world I had never known. I was from the area and had been in plenty of the spaces before, including the Green, around Main Street, and Mitchell Hall. I had ridden through Newark to get to things a lot, and the university just seemed like another part of the city. Now I have realized that this city has a lot of its hustle and bustle because of the university, and not just because of parties. College students are present in Newark daily buying food, laying on the Green, and, if it's before UDance, collecting money and fundraising. There is a sort of harmony around Newark, like an older sibling helping and working with a younger one. I have always felt that this school was a place of community.

But back to the university itself. When we arrived, there were enthusiastic Blue Hen Ambassadors dancing on every corner. The sight still fills me with pride and happiness when I am walking around campus. There was music playing and various activities and presentations we could go to, some of them more mundane but important things like Financial Aid and generic "What You Need on a Daily Basis Here" types of things. Others were way more fun. There was free ice cream from their very own creamery! How many universities have their own creameries? Their own top-rated restaurant (so cool that I still haven't been)? What other university makes their students know they are a community like Delaware?

I wanted to disappear from Delaware and go far away when I was in high school. Now, I can't imagine anywhere but Delaware being my undergraduate experience. I have been through some of the best and worst times with the students, professors, and staff at this university, and I could not imagine it any other way.