Going into college, I never thought that being a boarding school graduate would be such a defining characteristic because many of my friends from home also attended boarding school. As I write this, I would like to make it clear that I fully acknowledge that I am privileged in saying that I have been able to go to boarding school, and for that I am eternally grateful to my parents for giving me this opportunity.

I am an Emma girl. I completed three of my four high school years at Emma Willard, an all-girls boarding school in New York, and spent approximately eight of twelve months of the calendar year living within the gray walls on Mount Ida.

Because I went to Emma, I didn’t go to homecoming or football games like every other high schooler. Instead, I spent my Fridays going on chaperoned Target trips. I dressed up for a week in the February of my junior year to earn my class ring. I waited three years to step on a piece of grass we call the “senior triangle” (which isn’t actually a triangle). I was in the 101st Revels, our favorite tradition, and kept my roles as a countrywoman and Bearer of the Mustard a secret for three long months. I graduated from high school wearing a paper white floor-length dress that had to be approved and compared to a sheet of printer paper the month before.

Most people would say this is not an average high school experience, but I would not have traded my time there for anything else. The only regret I have is that I didn’t spend all four of my high school years there.

I have changed a lot during my time at Emma. Over the course of three years, the insecure, shy sophomore broke out of her shell and matured into an independent, brave senior. A lot of this growth would not have been possible without the support that the Emma community has given me over the years.

Emma taught me to be independent. For two years (thank you, senior privileges), I woke up every morning to the sound of lawnmowers and the fear of missing 7:45 a.m. breakfast check-in and the “punishment” that followed – waking up early the following day. I learned to do my homework during my free periods and to build my schedule around the Internet cut-off time every night (homework is important, but Netflix is too). By senior year, I even made it to swim practice at 6 a.m. once a week.

Living in a dorm taught me to be responsible for my own actions. After three years of Sunday night hall chores, whether it was tidying up the laundry room or taking out the trash, I learned to pick up after myself. Believe me when I say that no one wants to pick up hair from a shower drain or scrub out a microwave; I have done both chores more times than I would like.

Even though chores were not always my favorite pastime, I loved being a boarder. Living with your friends is different in the sense that you know everything about them, and they are always there – their alarms were the first thing I heard every morning, and their faces were the last thing I saw before I went to bed. From the Class of 2016, my teammates and my hall, I learned how to be a part of a community and to be a better friend. I learned how to be there for them while giving them enough space. Sometimes being for them meant leaving them alone or sitting in their rooms in silence, and other times that meant sushi deliveries and 3 a.m. late-night talks.

The final lesson that Emma taught me is to appreciate what I have.

It has been four months since I graduated from Emma. As I started my new college career and looked back at my time on Mount Ida, I realized how much I took this place for granted. Emma is not perfect, but it is home. There is not a day where I do not miss the community I have been lucky to experience, and continue to be a part of even though I have graduated. I don’t think I will ever find a place with so much love – I don’t even have the words to describe it, but all I know is that I walked onto a stage on a Friday night last December with 300 teenage girls clapping, screaming, stomping and crying for me and my class, and in that moment I knew I found a true home.

Dear Emma, thank you for everything you have given me. Thank you for being my home, both on Google maps on my phone and in my heart, for the past three years and many more to come. Thank you for the lessons, even the ones that hurt, and all the memories, no matter how strange some of them might sound to everyone else. Thank you for the classmates, faculty and dogs that turned into family. But most of all, thank you for helping me grow into the person I am today.