If you’re an out-of-state student at stony Brook there’s a high chance you’ve heard the question “how did you end up here?” accompanied by a baffled expression. Honestly, there is no cut and dry reason as to how you ended up here, you kind of just did.
In my case, I am a student hailing from the dirty South aka Georgia. Most people are shocked to find out I come from anywhere besides New York because I lack the telltale Southern accent. However I do have some Southern qualities like overusing the word y’all (especially since my English major heart knows it is not proper English) and saying lightening bugs instead of fireflies. When people find out I’m from Georgia, more often than not, I get questioned as to how I ended up here. And I’m sure many other out-of-state students get the same interrogation by everyone they meet. At times it is a little annoying to be an out-of-state student, especially at Stony Brook where a lot of students go home over the weekend. That means over the weekend campus is dead and the best thing to do is try and go to an event Weekend Life Council is hosting. However, even that is hard when you don’t have any friends to go with. For me, that just meant rounding up some of the other kids from different states that stay over the weekend or going to such events and making new friends.
Another thing in-state students will never understand the annoyance of is how much emphasis advisors put on taking the correct classes for Tuition Assistant Program, or as it is typically called TAP. Going to advisors and them telling you what classes to take for TAP can be frustrating especially once you have to explain to them that you don’t have that because you’re from out-of-state and then you get to repeat the entire conversation of how and why you’re at Stony Brook. It’s a quite repetitive process and can becoming draining at a point.
However an amazing thing about being from out-of-state is being able to share information about where you’re from with others. Like being able to tell someone why Georgia’s highways smell so bad (it’s the onions people) and why not everyone has an accent in the South. The amazement on people’s faces from when they learn new things about regions of the United States is so rewarding its worth going through all their questions.
Just recently I was asked by someone if I was going home this weekend and I was legitimately confused by their question. Then I realized they assumed I was from New York. Once I corrected them they were shocked and started asking me multiple questions such as home I ended up here. And I was honest with them, I kind of just made a split second choice to go far away and said YOLO in regards to my future. However what they don’t know is that my parents didn’t want me to go to an in-state school. They told me to go as far away as possible to be able to experience new things and see a different side of the world besides where I grew up. The thing is when you try explaining that to many people they seem confused as to why I made such a big jump but I don’t regret doing so in the slightest.