People have been telling me for a while now that I would start to feel weird when it came close to my graduation. Up until now, all I’ve had is little moments of sadness or strange feelings that I can’t put a name to. That all changed with a short thirty-minute presentation.
Last Thursday, I had the opportunity to sit in on an Admissions presentation for prospective new students. I thought I’d be bored watching the presentation, looking at all the information that I already knew and the pictures I had already seen. I assumed that this would just be a half hour of me looking back at the things I had come to learn about Kutztown. Right from the start though, I experienced all those feelings that people kept telling me I would have. The presentation started with a simple video describing what Kutztown is, what it has to offer and what you can do there. I remembered being a senior in high school and knowing nothing about Kutztown, other than the deep-seeded feeling that I was meant to go there. After all this time, I finally understood why I was supposed to be a Golden Bear.
High school me didn’t know a thing about colleges other than what my parents had told me. I fought and fought with them to let me go to another school, but they said no. It came down to two schools in the end and I was set to go visit the other, but as I sat in my art class one day during my senior year, I got this intense and overwhelming feeling that Kutztown was where I needed to be. I couldn’t explain it to myself, let alone my parents, but I knew that it was there and it was an omnipresent feeling that wasn’t going away anytime soon. My high school feelings were validated when I watched those promotional videos about Kutztown. Seeing pictures of the places that have been so familiar to me for so long made me realize that Kutztown would no longer be my home in such a short period of time.
I left that presentation with tears welled up in my eyes and that same feeling I had when I was sitting in my high school art class – an unexplainable, but strong feeling of home. I called my mom and I told her that I was going to miss this place and everyone here and the tears started to flow. As I prepare to leave the place that I have called home for the past two and a half years, I look back on all the things I’ve done and all the people I have been able to meet. Kutztown is my second home, the place I feel most comfortable and where I have become myself. As I walk around my home for the last few weeks as a student, I look back on all of the memories I’ve made and the opportunities I’ve been given. I’ve had the time of my life.