As a senior in high school, the time is here that we all already hate. The time is when you can't go a day, maybe even ten minutes without hearing "where are you going to school?". Everyone, although tired of the question, proudly answers . Finally, you get to boast and brag with pride about how far all your work of four years in high school has gotten you. When going to a small college, your four years mean just as much.

I myself will be attending a small school next year and the looks I have gotten are priceless, the words even more puzzling. "You're going to Rutgers Camden? You're going to stay on campus?" or "You better not walk around by yourself" or, even better yet, "Going to Rutgers New Brunswick would've been a bigger accomplishment, it's easy to get into Camden". Silly, huh? Everyone single person's work counts for the same thing no matter where they have chose. Each and every person has a preference and us small school selectors like ours!

In a small school, we will come out with a degree. Coming out with a degree is the point of schooling right? My degree from my small, tiny school will be worth just as much as another student with my same major. I will have studied the same exact content as my fellow graduates who have majored in the same thing from another school. We will all be slaving over the same work, staying up all night while holding our eyelids up because we are barley awake. We will all be working side by side when we graduate not even know who's degree is from where. Education is education, and that is important to remember.

My experience at a small school will be just as great as others at a big school. I will meet my group of friends that I will share tears and laughter with. I will stay up all night studying for my finals and take them the next day with an hour of sleep. I will walk into my dorm and decorate with my roommate on my first day of college. I will have to eat in a dinning hall while wishing I was eating chickfila. I will wake up not wanting to go to my 8 AM class. I will finish a paper at 11:59PM when it is due at 12:00AM. I too will get the work, friends, food, housing, you name it that comes with college. It is what you make it.

In the end, college is college and hard work is hard work. We have all endured the stressful time of picking and applying, so let's be gentle with each other. Be proud of others and yourself, wherever you are attending. Whether you will be attending a community school, beauty school, small school, big school, guess what? You made it.