“So what school will you be attending in the fall?”

“Oh, Middle Tennessee State University!”

“Where the heck is that?”

This was essentially how all of my conversations went during and the summer after my senior year of high school. I guess I don’t really blame anyone for not knowing about the school I was going to though. I lived in a town way down in the pit of South Georgia. Unless you were going to UGA, Georgia Southern, Georgia Tech, FSU or any big D-1 school in the SEC, people typically had never heard of it before.

Here I am in my second year here at MTSU, and I’m honestly so happy I chose to attend here. I decided of my goal to go here officially probably when I was about 15-years-old. My sister had gone here and graduated with a Music Business degree, and I was instantly infatuated with the school and the area in general. The only thing I hate about it is that most people outside of Tennessee don’t really know about it or even recognize it as being as good of a school as it is.

I always see tweets or posts on Facebook from my friends at home about how they hate still being stuck in that town and how they wish they could get out. This was me my last two years of high school. I didn’t necessarily hate my town, but I knew I needed to get away for a while. I was at a point in my life where I knew God was telling me I had to leave. It’s probably not going to be forever, but I trust He knows what He’s doing.

So, He brought me seven hours away from home to Murfreesboro, Tennessee. For those of you who don’t know where that is, I am roughly 30 minutes down the interstate from Nashville one way and about an hour and a half from Chattanooga the other way. My school isn’t called Middle Tennessee for nothing. It literally is in the very middle of the state of Tennessee. Honestly, it’s such a perfect location (minus the fact that it’s like the allergy capital of the nation).

Tennessee is a lot different than my home in Georgia. For one thing, I actually get a taste of every season rather than two of them. It actually snows here! It may not be anything compared to like New York, but last winter, we got a good enough snow that school was canceled and don’t you think for a second I didn’t spend all day outside playing in its beautifulness.

More specifically, my campus is just beautiful in general. Even on the days when it’s blazing hot outside, I don’t really mind walking miles to class from my car. Campus is also pretty centralized which is nice too. I’ve been to other schools where their campus is like spread out all over town, and I always wondered how people got from class to class on time. Thankfully, MTSU is close enough together to where I can get to class in a decent amount of time, but far enough apart to where I get my exercise daily. There are also a ton of places on campus to just sit and relax, read, watch Netflix, hang up your eno, and even skateboard. (I don’t do that, though. I would probably break something, but I totally envy the people that get to class so quickly because of riding skateboards, long boards, or penny boards.) We have this area called the Quad which is really neat. In between classes, everyone just hangs out in that area. Sometimes small concerts are put on there, silent discos, and there’s even this cute old man who sits every single day with a sign that says, “If you have any questions about Christianity, please ask.” It’s honestly such a cool sight to see.

The main people I want to target with this article are the people at home that are interested in anything in the music industry because I cannot stress to you enough how MTSU is the place to be for that. I am a Music Business major currently, and I actually enjoy going to all of my Recording Industry classes. I can’t compare much to the other schools around the Nashville area such as Belmont or Lipscomb, but MTSU has some of the best professors. I’ve never heard a single bad thing about the professors in my department specifically. They make class fun and interesting (even though I’m not sure how you could make learning about the music industry boring). Just to put a couple things into perspective for you, you may recognize some of these names I’m about to throw at you. All of these people attended Middle Tennessee State University at some point in their life. Jordan Kelly and Jason Huber both attended here. If you don’t know who that is, you may recognize them better by the name Cherub. Sam Hunt also attended here. In fact, he played quarterback here at MTSU for two years before he went to the University of Alabama Birmingham to play football there as well. The next person I have for you is Hillary Scott. Yes, Hillary Scott from the well known country music group, and personally one my favorites, Lady Antebellum. Lastly, Brett Eldridge also went here. He actually was in the same class I am taking now with the same professor a few years back.

These are living proofs that MTSU does create successful people in the music industry. Now, I realize I just named off a bunch of artists, and if you don’t want to be an artist, that’s perfectly fine. MTSU can make you into way more than just an artist. They can make you into publishers, tour managers, photographers, studio guys, and band musicians too. The possibilities are endless. Also, I realize that MTSU is out-of-state and out-of-state tuition is a no go for most. It was a no go for me. Luckily, there are ways to get around having to pay the out-of-state tuition. For example, in my case, my major is not offered at any school in Georgia, therefore they let me attend school here through the Academic Common Market program, therefore I pay in-state tuition. Say you don’t want to do Music Business, that’s okay! There’s a whole list of majors where this words the same way. I know Aerospace is another one of those examples. So, if you want to be a pilot of some sort, MTSU has one of the top Aerospace programs in the country (and their fancy building will prove it to you.)

There are just so many reasons why I think MTSU should be better well known than it is. It’s such a diverse school with opportunities for all kinds of people. I’m not joking when I stress how diverse it really is. I’ve been on campuses of some schools where it’s literally nothing but white people, and not to put down my own race, but I just enjoy seeing all the different types of people the world has to offer. I see it every day when I make my 15-minute walk to class. I see white people, black people, Asians, Middle Easterners, multiracial people, hippies, conservatives, and just so many other I can’t even name. We may not be the biggest (even though we do have more students than UT Knox), we may not have the football program that wins the National Championship every year, but my school is worth something. I just encourage you to look past the state of Georgia when looking for schools to attend. I don’t think I could’ve made a better decision to attend Middle Tennessee State University.