As a senior in high school, you are faced with an infinite amount of tough decisions. Are you going to go to college? If so, where are you going to go? What are you going to major in? What's the next step that will help you figure out the rest of your life?

As an 18 year old, that is a lot to take in. I remember being stressed out of my mind when I was trying to make these decisions, and get my life on track. While I went back and forth on all of my options, there was one particular battle that caused me a lot of turmoil at the time, yet I'm so thankful for it now, and that was forcing myself to get out of my comfort zone. When it cam down to my final decision for college it was between going to an in-state school where I knew several other kids from my class would be attending and going to a school the same distance away from home, but in a different state. Here's the catch though, I didn't know a single person at the out-of-state school. Both were good colleges that had my intended major and they costed about the same to attend, so where did that leave me? I debated with myself over and over about whether or not I wanted to attend a school where I already had several friends and knew that I would feel at home right away, or attend a school where I didn't know a single person and just hope that I clicked with someone during the first few weeks I spent as an awkward freshman.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that going to a school where I already knew lots of people, would have allowed me to limit myself. I knew that I wouldn't be brave enough to walk up to a total stranger and see if they wanted to be friends, unless I was absolutely forced to do just that. And so I did. I chose the out-of-state school, and made myself live outside of my comfort zone, and looking back I am so thankful for that decision.

The first day at my new school, was terrifying. My family helped me move all of my things in to my dorm room that would be home for the next year. I met my roommate, who would rapidly become my best friend as we spent every waking moment together while we tried to figure out "how to college." Then I said a tearful goodbye to my parents and I watched them drive away from the school, leaving me all alone for one of the first times in my life. I came eerily close to changing my mind; and asking them to come back, pack my things up, and take me back home to my normal life.

Good news, I decided not to do that and I'm so happy that I decided to stick with it and do what I set out to do in college. Which was make new friends, earn a degree, become someone that I was proud to be and have the best time of my life.

Since my roommate and I got along (thank God for her) we were able to struggle through the first couple weeks together. We attended all the awkward freshman events, forced ourselves to make friends with new people in the dining hall, and tried to take every opportunity to get out of our room and into the new and exciting world of college, and I'll be honest when I say that some attempts were more successful than others. I decided to go through sorority recruitment during this time as well. It was kind of on a whim, just as another opportunity to meet people, but it turned into the reason why I stayed at my school. And more than anything else, it forced me to put myself out there with tons of new women and try to make connections on my campus.

I started meeting more and more people at my school, and I realized that going somewhere where nobody knew me before, allowed me to really find myself. This wasn't because I had felt lost or unsure of who I was, but in a small high school like mine, everybody knows everything about everyone else. So even if you were meeting a new person, they already knew who you dated, what clubs you were in, who your friends were, etc. I never had to think about who I really was as a person or how it would be to make friends with someone that also knew nothing about me... until I came to college.

That was both a liberating and humbling experience as I found myself trying to find an identity besides being on the high school cheer team and associating with all of my friends from high school. Who was I really? What did I really care about? What kind of people did I want to associate myself with for the next four years of my life? I learned more and more about these questions the further into my freshman year I got, and honestly I've continued to grow in these areas over my years at Idaho State University.

I can't even put into words how much has changed in my past three years of college and I know that I owe a lot of that growth to the decision that I made to get out of my comfort zone. I have gained a whole new group of friends and family, made tons of amazing memories, and learned lessons (both scholarly and life-wise). But most importantly, I have learned about myself and I have learned how important and beneficial it is to open yourself up to new people, places, and experiences even when it is terrifying to do so.

I would recommend to anyone who is trying to make a decision about what college to attend, to take into consideration the ability to branch out in this way. There are some people who are able to do so, even in the presence of their old friends, but there just as many who, like me, need that extra push. They need the almost inevitable circumstance and feeling of being totally alone, in order to make themselves step out of their comfort zone and meet a new friend or join a new club, and that's okay. Regardless, it is well worth it to take that risk and discover a whole new world and whole new you outside of your previous knowledge.

That's what my college decision has given me, and I wouldn't dare look back in the other direction.