Choosing the wrong school

When choosing colleges, you tour every single place you physically can. Or atleast that's my advice for you. Look at the big, look at the little, look at the ones that are airplane rides away from home, and look at ones that minuets from home. The last thing you want, is to end up like me, three hours away from home and miserable. EVERYONE told me that 3 hours was the perfect distance away from home but I didn't take into account that I am not everyone. I am someone who I now know, is a homebody. Who wants to do good in school. Who wants to stay at home for as long as she can before she has to go out in the real world.

What they don't tell you about college is that you are coming here expecting one thing and experiencing another. You don't know anybody, you feel lonely, and the work load is insane. I can't even take a deep breathe without feeling like I'm suffocating. I struggle day in and day out with smiling, searching for the friends that all the books, articles, and wise family members tell you that you're going to meet. But when you choose the wrong school, you don't meet the right people.

The scariest part about choosing the wrong school, is knowing that you have to go to another school and HOPE that the same thing doesn't happen at this new place. I don't even know where to begin. I ask my friends, do you like it here do you like it there? But then I wonder... Do I want to go to college with the same people I went to high school with, because thats what I am doing now, and thats exactly what I hate. I envy the kids who went to school so far away that they are able to start over as whoever they want to be, the person that they knew they could be.

If I could give advice to people searching for the right college, don't go where your friends are going, yes you'll miss them but you don't want to be stuck with them. Don't go where your parents want you to go, they'll end up rubbing it in that they were right, and you'll want to leave. Go to the school that will make you the happiest you will ever be. Don't worry about the cost, or the town, or the distance or the size. You will know the second you step onto the campus that it is the right place. For me, it wasn't this school. It was a different school that I wish I was at but I'm not at because I wanted the dorm life college experience. I knew that the dorm life would be something I hate because I hate strangers, even though I am extremely friendly and outgoing. Now, I am stuck at place, 3 hours away from home, wanting to do nothing except go home, stay home, and do school at home.

Choosing the wrong school sucks. Don't make the same mistake as I did.