Going to college is the first movement students have to a life of freedom. Even the whole college experience helps you practice your freedom from the begging when you get to choose where you want to spend 4 or more years of your life. For the first time for many students, college is the first experience away from their parents for an extended period of time. In high school, students lived with their parents, speak to them every day, had their support, had chores done by their parents, and a lot of help. When you get to college, your parents aren’t there with you every day and you have your first encounter of facing the world as an adult. For some teenagers this is exactly what they want, to life on their own and be completely in control of their own lives. A Penn State student who I spoke with admitted that he does not miss his parents at all and enjoys the opportunities to make his own decisions. He does not find it difficult to adjust to the independent life and actually enjoys it more than when living back home with his family.
On the other hand, these independent experiences are also what scare many students leaving home for the first time. For student like me, I always needed help from my parents and I continue to find myself calling my mom asking for advice. When thinking about college, we must go through big changes. We completely move out of the home we’ve known for our whole lives into an atmosphere surrounded by kids our age and forced to share our personal space with one or more other students. This was a huge change for me and I still find myself having to adapt. Not only do I have to worry about my school schedule and classes, I must worry about finding time to get myself food, doing my own laundry, washing my dishes, doing my own grocery shopping, keeping track of all my clubs and sports, and so many other normalcy’s in life that I’ve had to learn how to master on my own. I’m still trying to work on not staying up so late studying buuut that one might take awhile…. Even though the freedoms and independence of college scares me still to this day, I know that in the end I am only benefitting from these experiences as they help prepare me for the real world ahead of me.