By
Maggie Burnett
Arizona Summer Wildcat
I'll admit it - my first choice for college was not the UA.
In fact, it wasn't among any of my choices, come to think of it.
At the tender age of 17, when I was slated to graduate high school and leap head first into college, I had already moved cross-country three times, not including the in-state moves I'd made before the age of three.
Whether I wanted to admit it or not, these moves tainted me. Just when I would find friends in one city, it seems my family was shipping out to the next. No, I wasn't an army brat - my dad just had it rough in the job market, something that I cannot and never will hold a grudge for.
So when it was finally my time to apply to college, I had just recently settled in the Phoenix area. I had my friends, my job, my family - and I wanted to go to ASU.
Yeah, that's right - I, at one point in my life, truly wanted to attend Arizona State University over the University of Arizona. It was closer to home and "everyone else was going there."
Still, my parents kept pressing me to apply to the UA. They dragged me to the freshman orientation. They raved about the beautiful campus, the way Tucson seems to revolve around the UA and the more "reasonable" size of this school as compared to the nearly 50,000 students at ASU.
Throughout the duration of the orientation, I kept a closed mind. I attempted to convince myself that moving from home (again!) would be far more awful than simply attending ASU.
Oh how wrong I was.
After a little prodding, I applied to the UA, received a scholarship which covered the majority of my tuition, and I was off, moving into the dorms to live with strange people in an even stranger town more than 100 miles from the home that I had just barely gotten to know.
That year was one of the best of my life.
I became fast friends with my two new roommates whom I'd never met. One had blue hair to match her blue fingernails and the other I heard speak Hungarian to her family before she even said "Hello" to me.
There were talks until the wee hours of the morning, movie nights in my neighbor's rooms, ordering food in, grabbing food out and parties - oh the parties!
Everywhere I turned, there was a new person to meet, a new experience to try and - most of all - a newly-discovered part of myself that I never knew I possessed.
Leaving home to go to the UA was the best decision I could have ever made. I have become a strong and independent person as a direct result. There was a time when eating lunch by myself would have been strictly taboo by my own standards. Now I dine alone frequently, mostly out of necessity but occasionally out of the enjoyment of being by myself for a little while.
At the risk of sounding like a preachy upperclassman, I'll try to keep my moral short and sweet: don't be afraid - of leaving home, meeting new people, trying new things, being by yourself or of discovering who you are.
This first year will be without a doubt one of the best of your life. You will laugh, cry and party your little freshman butt off. Just try to make room for class in there somewhere.
Had I gone to ASU, I would not only be a Sun Devil (gag), I would never have had the opportunity to leave home and become the person I am today.
But I'll still never admit to my parents that they were right.
