It is currently three days before my orientation at Longwood, and as I sit here, I have to ask myself how I got to this point. I have always known that I was going to college. My dad never attended college, but he always encouraged me to strive for academic excellence. I took a slew of honors and dual enrollment classes to try to achieve this goal, so that hopefully, once I got to the real thing, I wouldn’t feel too overwhelmed by the changes. However, despite all the anticipation and build-up, I still had no idea about where I wanted to go.Â
What does that mean exactly? I was stuck. I knew college was where I wanted to be, but I wasn’t sure which one I wanted to attend. After a couple of conversations and some deliberation, I concluded that I had three standards that must be met: it must be no more than two hours from my house, it must be public, and it must be a small school. With these criteria in mind, I applied to four schools.Â
From my experience, colleges pursuing you is like being asked out. William and Mary essentially ghosted me until the day of, Christopher Newport was saying, “Yeah, I guess we could go out or whatever,” while Mary Washington and Longwood were all, “Please, please, please, pick me. I’ll do anything, you’re so cool and pretty.” Both schools with this approach had equal pull for me, and one of my closest friends was going to the other, but unfortunately, Longwood came through with the better offer and opportunities, and won out in the end. On top of all of that, Farmville had a nicer, classic small-town feel than anywhere else I applied.Â
You would think that the loneliness of going to a college with no one you’re close to would be the worst part of it, and while it is up there for me, it certainly is not the absolute worst. The true worst part of leaving for college is leaving everyone who stays behind. The majority of my friends are staying in my hometown, and the ones who aren’t are attending schools that are two or more hours away from me. Half of the time, when I think of going to college and trying to meet new people, people to replace the ones I just spent the last 18 years of my life with, I feel nauseated. However, after orientation, having been surrounded by my peers, I realized something. The first was that I don’t have much to worry about, because I love to talk, and no amount of wanting to be mysterious and nonchalant will change that (in case you couldn’t tell).
Now, here we are, exactly a week away from move-in. Reality is starting to set in, stress is high, and the anticipation is higher. It feels as though I’m about to jump out of an airplane, with hard work and humour as my parachute, I just pray that it’s enough. I’m starting to pack my clothes, I’ve pulled pictures and posters off my walls, and shoved all the things that make me me into little boxes to decorate my new home. That brings us back to our original question. What am I doing here? I’m trying to start a new life, I guess. Grow and change and evolve into who I’ve always wanted to be. My clothes are packed, my chute is prepped, Farmvegas, here I come!