As I approach my last week of my semester, I feel a little bit of everything. I'm extremely happy, slightly sad, and very excited. There are a lot of factors that go into these emotions and I'm going to do my very best to express everything that I have to say.

Unlike most people at my current college, I will not be returning for the spring semester. I will be transferring into DeSales University as a musical theatre major, hopefully minoring in journalism, as well.

Let me start out by putting this here:
No, I'm not leaving New York City because I miss my boyfriend.
No, I'm not leaving New York City because I can't handle living on my own.

When I mention that I'm going to be transferring to a school back in PA, I get asked if I miss home and if that's the reason why I'm leaving New York. Yes, I miss my house and people, but that's not why I'm leaving at all. I'm not leaving school and coming to live at home. I will still be about an hour and 15 minutes away at school, living in a dorm.

But yes, it makes me so happy that instead of being 3 hours away from my friends and family, I'll only be a little over an hour away. Nothing beats my Delaware friends and seeing them over winter break is what's getting me through the rest of the semester.

When the time to apply to colleges came around, I never had a top school. I wasn't a senior who had a top choice. It was never one and done for me. I ended up convincing myself that New York City was the best and only place for me to be. I kept telling myself that I'd regret it if I didn't go because it's a great place to study media and film. I toured other schools, DeSales being one of them, and I really liked some of them. But I kept telling myself you need to be at Marymount, you need to be in New York City, so I closed off my mind to the other options. In April, I deposited for Marymount and that was it— it was settled.

I felt awesome the first few days after I moved in. I didn't think that I was sad or that I made a mistake. My dorm room looked awesome, my classes hadn't started yet and my schedule wasn't too bad. I even had off on Fridays. Looking back, I guess it all seemed so great because the idea of living in New York hadn't sunk in yet. It wasn't real. It wasn't permanent. It felt like a 10 day vacation.

After two weeks, I started dreading every single day that I was there. It settled in that this was permanent. I wanted to go home so badly that every two weeks, if not every 10 days, I did go home. I hated going to school in the city and I didn't like the school I had chosen. I was told that this was normal and that this feeling would go away. I knew this wasn't about getting used to a school. It was about me feeling out of place. Is this school/city for some people? Absolutely. It just wasn't for me and I realized it very early on. Since the last week of September, I knew I wouldn't be spending 4 years here.

I was always very anxious living in New York City. I have always been nervous in cities ever since a bad experience in one last year. I didn't want to walk outside or take subways because they were always busy and chaotic. I couldn't mentally handle all that was going on around me. I felt unsafe walking the streets, whether it was in broad daylight or at night. Regardless of how many people were walking with me, or how many were around me, I couldn't help but to feel nervous. A full semester passed by and it didn't go away.

I did end up making a couple of good friends here who I really am going to miss when I leave. After they got to know me, they understood how I would feel safer on a college campus and how living in the city at 18 years old wasn't for me. People began to notice how I didn't want to go out at night and how I seemed anxious whenever I did go out. Despite getting close to a few people, the idea of leaving the city overpowered any inkling of staying. I know being here wasn't for me.

I also felt separated from most of the people at my school. I knew I was going to be walking into a very liberal environment if I attended a school in New York City, but I never realized it would be as strong as it is.
Going to school in the city isn't the typical college experience that I wanted, either. I want more of a "dining hall campus community" feel to my college. Not only did I feel that I was surrounded by cliques, but it was hard to become friends with lots of people when you're living in an apartment style dorm in New York City. It was like waking up and going to work everyday. It didn't feel like college.

When I committed to the school, I wasn't aware that I was unable to participate in any musical theatre/choir activities my first semester unless I was a musical theatre major. Everyone who knows me knows that performing is my favorite thing to do. I felt that just because I wasn't studying theatre didn't mean that I didn't take it seriously enough to audition for anything. As someone who is a very avid participant in activities, there was a lack of clubs that interested me.

My first college experience was not how I pictured it and I never thought I'd be a transfer student. A lot of factors went into my choice to transfer and I'm very excited and looking forward to the place I'm going in the spring. I'm excited to be able to see my best friend everyday and study theatre and writing in an environment that's all-around best suited for me. College is looking up, friends.