All I wanted to do was get out.

I am from a small town called Gig Harbor, in the great state of Washington. Not Washington DC. The other Washington. The one with the trees and the Space Needle. Gig Harbor is famous for its maritime location and Josh Lucas. You know, the guy who played Jake Perry in Sweet Home Alabama? Charles Lindbergh in J. Edgar? No? Okay, that's fair.

I wanted to go as far away as possible. I devastated my mother by applying to nine east coast colleges, one in the midwest, and only four on the west coast. I really didn't want to stay close to home. When people asked my father what he thought about me going so far away, his response was, "It doesn't matter what I think, she's gonna do what she wants."

So here I was. On August 2014, I moved into my dorm room exactly 2,777 miles from home. No family nearby and I had made exactly zero friends yet. Not that I was worried about any of that, but it's always something people have reminded me of. "How could you go so far away and not know ANYONE going to college with you? What are you going to do when something goes wrong?"

I learned a lot about myself when I moved across the country. When I had an upper respiratory infection, I had to get someone to take me to urgent care, and had to get all the medication myself. I had to budget my quarters for laundry because I couldn't just go home when I was running low to do laundry at my parents' house. I had to be able to solve my own problems, because when I called my parents to discuss them, there wasn't much more they could do about it aside from listen to me vent about it. I've always been independent by choice, but this was be independent or fail.

Everyone I met working in the admissions office who is from out of state, or had to get on a plane to be at McDaniel, asks me why I chose to go so far away. I always tell them it was an accident. And I tell them that it was the best accident ever. I met my best friends who have now become my family and my support system. We have laughed together, cried together, and been there for each other through everything that makes college fun, stressful, and life-changing.

To every rising senior thinking about going far away, I tell you to do it. Moving my life has been the best thing that has ever happened to me. I have become a different person, and I believe that I've changed for the better. You learn a lot of lessons about life, who you are, and who you want to be. You go on an adventure of epic proportions.

My adventure is still ongoing, but rest assured that I make every moment something worth moving 2,777 miles for.