I remember when I first started applying to all these different colleges, trying to narrow it down to at least ten that I thought would be a good fit for me. When I applied to St. Joe's, I really didn't know much about it and was it was really a last minute school I applied to. I heard a couple good things about it form my guidance counselor and some other kids who visited the school before me so that gave me a push to go see what it was like. I was unsure about St. Joe's when I first came here. I didn't get a good feel for the students here and what the environment was around campus. It was a cold rainy weekend and no one was around which put the campus in a bad light for the first visit.
Then came orientation. I was so nervous at first, not knowing where anything was and feeling lost with the size of the campus stretching over two towns. But I felt more at ease thinking about how everyone else was in the same boat; feeling nervous and kind of lost. As orientation went on, I felt a lot more comfortable with the school and everything it was about, the mission here, what the other students were like, the different classes available, etc.
As the day got closer to our first day, I never felt more anxious. I was so excited to leave my hometown and experience the big city of Philadelphia. The city was one of the main reasons for coming to St. Joe's along with the well-regardeed business school. Along with the feeling of anxiousness, I was feeling nervous about meeting my roommate and other suitemates. I wasn't so eager to leave behind my countless high school friends I've known for the past 6 years and go make new ones who I'd be forced to live with the next year. But, this necessity to make new friends is good because you push yourself to step out of your comfort zone and experience new people and interacting in different ways around them.
I feel that I have grown dramatically. Learning how to live on my own has pushed me to do things I couldn't have imagined doing before in high school. Taking a 5 hour train to and from Philly from my hometown? I never would have thought about doing this on my own as a nineteen year old. I was so nervous to think about having to take a train, stopping at Penn Station and figuring out what to do with no prior experience. I feel that these couple travel instances alone have helped me adapt and learn what the real world is like. No parents around telling you what to do or holding your hand and directing you down the right path.
There's definitely so much more to learn though. I'll be turning 20 in about nine months and sometimes I think to myself that there can't be much more that I don't already know. Yet, everyday I find something new and experience things I never would've imagined. Traveling on SEPTA to some town called Ardmore to an apple store to fix a broken computer screen!; definitely something I wasn't expecting to do alone as a college freshmen. But, I'm excited for what my future at St. Joe's holds for me and I can't wait to experience these next couple years!
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