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I CAN't STAY?
As the school year draws to a close, students nationwide are slipping into apathy in anticipation of summer and the freedom it holds: I am not one of them. Instead, I find myself in a panic, dreading the end of the year. Over the last eight months, I've made this place my home. I'm more comfortable, productive and happy here. I don't want to leave. For many college students like me, their arrival at college is a declaration of independence, symbolic of the start of their own life. They've finally overcame their own Redcoats, their parents, and they're ready to form the foundation for their own life. College provides a great platform for the start of a new life, as it's hard to compete with the completeness that college provides. Everything is wrapped up into one miniature community inside a college campus, providing a very manageable environment for students. On-campus life truly is a society of its own. From friends to classrooms, jobs to stores, it's all readily available. On an even smaller scale, dorm floors themselves can be powerful communities. Friends are merely feet away, rather than miles or states away, which can lead to forming strong new friendships, ones you normally wouldn't have if you were commuting to school from home. It's these friendships and this community that have helped me to grow up this past year. By being surrounded by friends going through the same things, I've been able to learn what it means to live "on my own" and how to manage my own life rather than let my parents do it for me. This coming-of-age is the same reason that it's particularly hard to leave it all for the summer, as it signifies my return to the past, back to the life of living under my parents, being a dependent once again. As any American Revolutionary will tell you, once you taste that freedom, there's no turning back. So I won't consider it turning back, rather a simple vacation in my newborn life, a chance to sit back and relax until the next chapter begins.
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