Senior year, it flies by. Before you know it, you’re applying to colleges, getting acceptance letters, and then making that one big decision: where you will spend the next four years of your life. For me, it wasn’t such an easy decision at first. I looked at schools all over the country, thinking that I wanted to “move far away and experience being an adult,” but I also looked at schools near home. When it came down to it, my school was TCU. I knew I wanted to be a horned frog from the moment I got my acceptance letter. But something that came with this great decision of mine, were not-so-great reactions from others around me. “Oh you’ll be close,” “At least you are near home,” and “Mom is only a short car ride away” soon became very old. Yes, I was only moving a short 20 minutes from home, but I was still moving out. I was still going to experience the type of changes that every other senior was as well. What people didn’t understand was that even though I was a close distance from home, I didn’t feel as though I was staying close by. TCU is its own community and has its own daily routine. This was not a part of my previous life, and it is a major change. Obviously moving across town was not as major as moving to California, but it was still a move. Another thing that most people didn’t realize, was that living close to home is almost harder than living farther away. I’m not going to lie, it’s hard not to go home every weekend and have a nice home cooked meal and a shower without shoes. It’s hard to not call my mom on Friday and ask if she wants to come have lunch, even though I know she secretly loves when I do that. As much as living near home is great for those reasons, I have to remember that a lot of other people don’t get this privilege. Kids go months without seeing their family and months without a car to transport them to the grocery store. I have to remember that being close to home is a curse as much as it is a privilege and I need to be careful on how often I do go home. But then again, why would I need to go home when TCU is all I ever wanted?
This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at TCU chapter.