After doing some critical reflection on how much has happened during this school year and throughout this year, I've come to realize how much I have grown and changed as a person. With this being my senior year, a lot has happened for me in terms of me planning for my future, as well as enjoying every moment of my senior year. After ending a long journey of looking at colleges, filling out applications, and waiting patiently (or impatiently) for acceptance or rejection letters, I can officially say that it is all over now that I have committed to one school-VCU!!
I used to think that choosing the right college for me would be an easier process, until I was faced with many different challenges and warnings about the school I used to want to go to. Family and friends of mine all told me not to consider going to Radford, but at first I felt that they didn't know what they were talking about. I kept telling myself that I was right all along and I would somehow prove them wrong about it--until I found out that there was some truth to what they had been saying all along.
That was when, after hearing from two people that I should consider VCU, which originally was just another school I applied to to have more options, became a consideration. I went onto their website, looked at their clubs, looked up vegan restaurants in Richmond, and immediately did a complete 180. I already had better feelings about this school even though I had never visited it.
About two weeks waiting almost desperately for a letter from VCU, I come home from school on Monday, March 12 to receive a thick envelope from them with my name on it. I race down the drive way, swing open the garage door and tear open the envelope to find a a VCU bumper sticker and a letter. My heart is racing and adrenaline pumps through my veins as I begin reading "Perhaps it is my greatest pleasure in welcoming students to Virginia's most dynamic university."
After notifying people that I had been accepted (via my snapchat story and my mom telling some relatives), I began to realize that maybe this was the school for me. However, I still needed to visit it to get a taste of what it was all about. So, later in the week, on Friday, I went on a campus tour of VCU. After one visit, I could already tell that this was a much better match for me.
The urban environment, the amount of vegan options that were available, and the diversity were what attracted me most to VCU. Just reading these signs allowed me to be more honest with myself than I had ever been about a big decision. It was almost as if the school was mirroring my exact thoughts and beliefs about who I am, which was how I knew it was the right one for me.
What This Experience Has Taught Me
1. Do not solely go by your feelings when making a big decision like this. Use your logic and reasoning skills.
2. Before deciding what is the right school for you, have an idea of what you are looking for in a school and compare with other schools to see what matches with what you want in a school the most.
3. Be patient. These types of decisions take time.
4. Be honest with yourself. If a school that you might like at first doesn't have what you need, it's okay to say it isn't for you.
4. Don't have your heart set on one school until you're ready to commit. Have some options, because your top choice can change (just like mine did!).
5. Do not tell a lot of people about where you want to go until you are getting closer to committing.
6. Just enjoy it! The whole process of filling out college applications might not be that exciting, but visiting schools, reading reviews online, learning more about the school, and researching the city or town it's located in can be.
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