Deciding on your college plans is possibly one of the scariest times in ones young life, especially when you are looking to go far from home. It seems your whole world is applications and ACT scores. You go on countless visits trying to envision yourself finding a new home for four years. Then you stumble on a campus, and everything just feels right.
You see yourself sprinting to class on your first day, or sitting at the campus Chick Fil A with your new friends. This is it. As soon as you leave, the never ending nag of waiting for your acceptance letter sinks in. During that time an uneasy feeling may make its way into your mind as well. Or maybe that feeling comes after your acceptance letter, or right before you move in. That feeling that brings thoughts like am I making the right decision? Should I stay closer to home? Eventually though you shake off the nerves and it's your first day. And those nerves may be back.
College can be overwhelming, especially in the beginning. But before you know it you're in a routine, you're having the time of you're life. Football games, date functions, classes you actually enjoy, it hits a point where you get a new feeling. The feeling that you have heard countless people talk about. The one you spent years thinking, wow I can't wait to be them and have that feeling. The feeling of not being able to imagine yourself at another school.
When you love screaming your lungs out in the football stadium, find your stomach in knots over the last basket in the game, or realizing you hate the rival school more than anything; that's how you know you chose the right school. When you come home for break and people ask you how you like college and a smile immediate comes across your face, that's how you know you chose the right school. When you miss your friends the literal day you leave them, that's how you know you chose the right school.
The place you were nervous about making a home in for the next four years becomes so much more than that. It becomes a place that will be home long after you graduate. It's somewhere you know you'll come back to with all your friends for the homecoming game, somewhere you'll make memories that will bring you smiles for a lifetime. When you take a minute to think, and it hits you that this is the happiest you have ever been in your life. When you've met people you can see being your best friends your whole life. When you walk around campus wondering if life could be any better, that's how you know.
