Everybody told us our lives were about to change monumentally. Our teachers, our parents, our admissions advisers. Maybe even the valedictorians of our graduating class in their speeches. But were we really prepared for the complete switch in lifestyle, despite all of the stories we'd been told and advice we'd been given for the months leading up to it?

I can't speak for everyone, but I know I wasn't. Or at least, the person I was then wasn't.

Since going away to school, all of us have become different people. Whether this is a good or a bad thing really depends on the outlook of the day. But living so far away from our families and being placed in a new environment forced to meet all new people and begin a completely different life will change the person you are. It's inevitable.

To the people we were before: thank you for getting us this far. Thank you for setting up the values we had when we came to school and shaping the kind of person we would become when the time came for us to grow up. Thank you for giving us a steady foundation to build a new life upon, and setting the course for our futures.

Without the people we were before we left, we could never have grown so much when we got to school. Without our old insecurities, we never could have learned to love ourselves. Without our old favorite movies and TV shows, we never would have met the same people to watch Netflix and have movie nights with. Without our old backgrounds and the friends we had before we left, we never would have learned the importance of putting effort into the people who matter and having the strength to walk away from those who don't.

Now that we're away at school, we've had to take initiative of our own lives, learn to handle ourselves without our parents helping us, and decide what and who is important in our lives. But without the people we were before we came, none of us would have known where to start, and we wouldn't have had the opportunity to grow. So thank you, to the people we left behind in our hometowns with our high school friends and family, because you paved the way for the people we would grow into as we move on to the next portion of our lives. Thank you for your values, your loves, and your individuality. Without them, we never would have become our own people.

And that's what going away is really about, or so everybody told us.