To my small town college campus,

Thank you for being everything I never knew I wanted. My first impression was during a visit I made to campus while I was still in high school and, I can’t say that it was love at first sight. I had wanted to attend a small school mostly for the smaller class size in the beginning. But, a big city was my home and it was all I ever knew. I never expected to fall in love with the familiarity I feel when I look out of my living room window every morning. Thank you for bringing me close to a group of people who have such a special place in heart and who each play such an important role in my life. I’m grateful for those extra 5 or 10 minutes I get to spend with a friend who I’m laughing with, because it’s raining out and we opted to take the tunnel system under our small college after getting out of class. I love that running down the hill behind my freshman year residence hall fills me with the unbridled joy that it does. There is a definite sort of happiness that fills me when I’m walking down a busy street in the city with busses and cars and people always all around, and I see the bakery I pass every morning. But there is a different sort of happiness that comes with walking down a quiet one way street past houses that you’ve passed hundreds of times and seeing a familiar face walking their dogs around the neighborhood. Thank you for making days that I have no motivation to get out of bed worth it when I feel the crisp winter air and see the same mountains all around me that I fell in love with.

This campus has taught me how to love the simple beauty in all things around you. I don’t see new people every day and I don’t fall asleep listening to city sounds like cars passing and groups of drunk people laughing. But, I get to look out over a cotton candy colored sunset and snow on mountains and I get to make connections with people who share this experience with me every day. Thank you to this small campus that has shown me that even though there is not as much happening here as there would be in a city, that there is spirit of community that surrounds me at all times and that is more than enough to put a smile on my face as I look around a place that I’ve grown to know and love as home.

Love,

A forever grateful student