Here we are once again, heading back to our University of South Carolina world in two weeks. As the reality of settling back into our school zone sinks in, students are reminded of their familiar lives here at USC.

Whether you will be returning to campus from across the country or from just across the state, we all find ourselves readjusting to the first few weeks back in Gamecock country. While we are reuniting with friends during recruitment, it is clear how different our world in Columbia is from our separate worlds at home.

Many of us become aware of these differences as to-do lists and homework are put back on our radar. Being an out-of-state student from Cincinnati, Ohio, it is always obvious to me how many differences there are between being at home during the summer and being back at school. More than just a climate change occurs when I go back and forth between school and home. It is always an adjustment, because I consider both places to be home.

I was in Cincinnati for months and spent my time in extremely different ways than I do at school. I had babysitting jobs throughout the week, spent tons of time with my family and hung out with old friends from high school. Most other students go home on break to jobs and similar situations as this. We catch ourselves being excited to go home to delicious home cooking and look forward to all the relaxation time to come.

However, at school, responsibilities are the top priority and our family is our close friends. Now, approaching the end of our long break, I am ready to get right back to my life at school. I can't wait to be with my sorority sisters and roommates again, even if it did mean the reintroduction of schoolwork into my daily agenda. While the summer may have been filled with fun and games and plenty of down time, our schedules will fill up once again as fall semester begins. On the bright side...we do have SEC football. It can be difficult to jump right back into endless studying, paper writing and homework, but being back at our second home is ultimately worth it.

So as we all get back in the swing of things and jump back into schoolwork that doesn't include reviewing syllabi, it is important to take a deep breath. We should think of how we have a home away from home at the University of South Carolina. Although our two homes may be vastly different, we ultimately welcome the opportunity to return to either place, missing the other one as we do so.