I know what your thinking, "OK here’s another college post that isn’t relatable to me at all," but I promise you this will be different. I don’t think you will feel that way at all about what I’m going to say.
Let's start with the meet and greets in each of your classes. So you get to class and what is the first thing you do? You go around and introduce yourself. This is where it's different going to a state school rather than just a regular university. Now your teacher says, please tell us your name and what town you’re from. When I first heard this I was incredibly confused. How is everyone going to know where those towns are, but as everyone introduced themselves I realized something—every one of those towns is within two hours of my house and most of them are within 40 minutes. Now, I don’t commute, I don’t live 10 minutes from my school, I am from the very tip of New Jersey and right on the cusp of New York. Another thing I noticed was that every single person in every one of my classes is from New Jersey.
I am in my second semester and I have yet to come across someone who is not from the state. At first, I thought it was perfect! I would not have any problems relating to others or finding a ride home if I needed one. The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized how much I didn't like it.
I know what you're thinking, "why?"
When you meet someone and you tell them you are from River Vale and you discover that they are from Westwood, it is sort of disappointing. The reason for the disappointment is because there is nothing new and exciting about meeting someone who goes to all the same restaurants that you do and already knows about all your local high school rivalries. They already know that you say Taylor Ham and not Pork Roll and they know about all the best and worst of your area from nail salons to bagel stores. There’s no saying “you know we have this awesome tradition where I’m from” or anything like that because they already know it all. It gets boring quickly. You never meet anyone who’s like from California and lives on the beach, or is from the desert of Texas, or is from a different country. You don’t get to learn about how they talk super laid back in California or how the person from Texas has never seen snow before or anything of that sorts.
When you attend a state school most of your peers are from that same state. This is great because it means they probably live close enough that they can go home if they want; however, this holds just as much bad as it does good. You can be sure that a lot of your new friends are MIA most weekends or during random days. Being on an empty campus is never ideal and can get depressing.
This also makes it difficult to form a group of friends or a new family at school. Of course, you’ll make some friends, but you won't have time on the weekends when you’re not in class to hang out or do anything outside of class if they go home on the weekends. At home with your family, you could come home from school eat dinner and talk about your day or really about anything. Your family is your support system and it's important to find people that you could consider your family at school.
