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Attending College Away vs. In-State

Attending College Away vs. In-State
6/24/2011
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Darci Miller

When I first began looking at colleges, I knew right away that I didn’t want to attend school locally. I wanted to forge my own way away from home and none of New York’s state schools really interested me. I did apply to one in-state school (Syracuse) that’s a multiple hour drive away from home but ended up not going there.

Starting at Miami was a bit of a culture shock. I went from seeing familiar faces everywhere in high school to being the one solitary Baldwinite at college. There are several others from my high school at Miami but they’re older than me and we’ve never interacted before. I was entirely on my own. My friends, on the other hand, moved on from high school in a very different way: Almost everybody I know attends college with at least one other person from high school and SUNY Binghamton is now the home of more than 20 members of my graduating class, many of whom now live together.

Sometimes, I’m a little bit jealous. If vacation days don’t line up, I’ll be sitting in my dorm room reading Facebook updates about how everyone’s getting together back at home – people can’t afford to fly down to Miami to visit one friend but they can afford to drive to Binghamton to visit dozens of them – but embarking on a college journey miles away from home does have its positives.

By going to school away, you’ll get to miss out on all the stupid high school drama inherent in high school friendships. You’ll be able to make an entirely new group of friends without worrying about what your old friends think of you or of them. You can reinvent yourself entirely if you want to, become your own person and return home new, improved and blissfully unaware of who kissed who and who now hates who. Trust me, you won’t miss it!

Darci Miller is a New Yorker studying journalism and sport administration at the University of Miami. When she’s not writing for the school newspaper, you can find her at the gym, either working or working out. She loves all ‘80s pop culture (the cheesier the better!), and glues herself to her TV when the Olympics are on. She dreams big, and believes the sky’s the limit!

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