Moving away from home is a monumental moment in a teenager/young adult’s life and it can either be the best experience of your life or you can be back home faster than you can say “dorm life”.
Before moving out myself, I heard horror stories of friends that had gone out-of-state or far from their hometown and came back within a years time; I also heard the amazing stories of experiences of friends who loved their school and on-campus life. So it can really differ for everyone.
Before transferring to San Francisco State University, I lived at home, in a nice suburb in Orange County, Calif. I lived a very comfortable and some might say luxurious life but I really had a yearning for adventure, unknown cities and life…real life, and to desperately leave the “O.C. bubble”.
So when I was applying to schools, I didn’t choose the typical O.C. girl choices like: UCLA, UCI, UCSD, SDSU and so on. San Francisco has always been an intriguing place for me; it was the perfect warm-up for New York life, so when I decided to attend SFSU. My imagination ran wild.
Moving to San Francisco, by far, was the most life-changing decision I had ever made and I loved it. I knew I wanted to live on campus my first year in order to get the gist of student life, the campus and the amazing city.
One thing I can promise to anyone considering living on-campus/away from home is convenience. Oh my goodness, I cannot begin to name the million mornings where I woke up at 8:57 a.m. for a 9:10 a.m. class and made it out the door and perfectly on-time. Or when I was dying of hunger and ran to my apartment for a 15-minute break from class and warmed up last night’s leftovers. Or when the unpredictable San Francisco weather decided to shift from the Sahara Desert to the Alaskan mountains and I ran and switched into my huge cardigan.
While being on-campus and near all the action is great, especially in a city like San Francisco, it also can be exhausting. I went from driving my own (nice) car to public transportation in one minute, and as much as I love it and its fun to explore and not worry about gas, traffic and those inevitable tickets, I really do miss not having to walk 0.9 miles home with two bags filled with groceries or not having to take two buses to get a #2 with Animal Style fries from In N Out.
Another huge thing I took for granted was food, no five-star restaurant or amazing hole-in-the-wall Indian restaurant will compare to my mom’s cooking…ever (it won’t compare to yours either, trust me). Oh and speaking of moms, my mom used to do my laundry along with the rest of the current teenage population, and now I have to cry until I find my last pair of clean leggings to throw on at 8:57 a.m. to get to government class.
Even with no clean leggings and frozen meals, moving to college and living on-campus has been the best decision I have ever made, don’t get me wrong it hasn’t been a walk in the park but even with all the adjusting, struggles and missed-buses, it was all worth it, because I now have experiences that I can never buy or make again anywhere else. So if you were to ask me, take the plunge, move as far away as you (or your parents will allow you) and live life, fully and irrevocably.