"Why did you decide to move to Long Beach?"

I get asked this question a lot when people find out that I decided to move over a thousand miles for college. I'm from a tiny town called Lakebay that's about an hour outside of Seattle, Washington and I had only visited Southern California twice before when I was under the age of ten.

Long Beach, the place I go to school, and Lakebay, the town I was raised, are two polar opposite places. The nearest traffic light to my home is about a fifteen minute drive. In Long Beach if I go on a five minute walk to my friend’s apartment, I've already hit two lights.

It takes a thirty minutes to drive to my old high school, and that's going forty-five miles per hour down a high way. My high school was actually considered close compared to getting to the nearest mall (which was an hour away).

Something that I absolutely love about Long Beach is just how close everything is. The beach is a five minute drive, there's tons of cool hole in the wall places, and Los Angeles is about a thirty minute to an hour drive away.

What appealed to me the most at the time was how different it was from my home, and how different I was going to be from the people I graduated high school with. Most of the kids in my graduating class went to one of four state schools, and I'd be part of the small sliver of the graduating class that left the Pacific North West.

I'd be able to go to college knowing I would never run into anybody that knew me from high school. No one would have any preconceived notion based off of who I was growing up. I had the freshest start I've ever had in my whole life.

Moving to Long Beach was definitely one of the scariest things I've ever done. Not only was it going to be my first time living on my own, but I didn't know anybody in the area. I was afraid that I'd get homesick and I wouldn't make any friends and inevitably regret my decision to move.

So after completing my first year of college, when I get asked, "Why Long Beach?" I know my answer: Because moving there was the best thing to ever happen to me.

I've grown so much in the last year while I lived there. I was the most independent I've been in my entire life, I've become friends with people because I wanted their friendship not because I felt forced to, I've grown so much stronger in my faith, and despite being over one thousand miles away I've become closer to my family.

Some may say that I would have had similar, if not the same, experiences had I gone with a cheaper state school.

And to that I'd say they're wrong, because I know I wouldn't have had the same experiences in a tiny college town with the girl that sat in front of me in English class throughout high school next door. My soul connected to the beautiful city of Long Beach that I love to call home