It was a pretty typical Friday afternoon in October in the great city of Tallahassee, Florida when I first arrived on the Florida State University campus. My whole family and I walked into the Visitor’s Center in the stadium and quickly met my tour guide, whose name was Jake and was a Political Science major, just like me! I thought. We walked out of the stadium and passed Dick Howser baseball stadium and thought, huh this place is pretty cool. I continued outside with my tour group and just looked from side to side while walking under the canopies formed by the old trees on either side of the walkway. The FSU students looked so happy. They looked genuinely content with where they were, unlike the students at a school down south that shall not be named. What really got me was the walk across Landis Green.
To this day, I can remember how at home I felt when walking across there. In that moment I realized this is where I was most likely going to (hopefully) call home in the coming fall.
About a month and a half later, I woke up one December morning sick to my stomach and the feeling did not go away the entire day until I logged into my FSU portal after school to see that I had been accepted to The Florida State University. I was on a high and I stayed that way.
Fast forward a year and a half later. Going into my sophomore year, I still have that same feeling. The same feeling I had when I crossed Landis Green for the first time. The same high I had when I saw I was accepted. I will forever be grateful for the chance to attend FSU.
It broke my heart packing up my dorm room at the end of freshman year. It broke my heart saying goodbye to everyone I had just met yet felt like a lifetime. It broke my heart walking out of my sorority house after my finals were over, knowing I wouldn't be back for three and a half months.
Wherever you go to school, you were nervous when you first got there as a freshman. Did I make the right choice? Should I have picked the other school I was deciding between? Will this be the right fit for me?
Well, dear one-year-ago-little-naive me, you absolutely made the right choice for school. You can't imagine going anywhere else at all. You can't imagine not knowing the people you have met. You can't imagine cheering on any other team on Saturdays in the fall. You can't imagine late nights in any other library. You can't imagine going to any other bars. You can't imagine any other life than you have right now.
