My entire college experience has been a rollercoaster. Between changing majors, moving back home, and eventually transferring to a different university, it would have been difficult for me to imagine my life going on this path before I started my freshman year. Though being at a new school has been a huge adjustment, my transfer experience has taught me so much about myself and what I plan to accomplish in my life.

Entering university, in general, was a scary thought for me at the start of my senior year of high school. I had never lived on my own before and moving away to an unfamiliar place far away from my friends and family sounded less than ideal. I shuddered at the thought of having to adjust to living with roommates and having to create an entirely new life for myself all on my own.

At the same time, I was even more unhappy with the thought of going to a school that was too close to home. In drafting my list of college applications, all of the universities I was applying to were in Pennsylvania, New York, and North Jersey (I’m from South Jersey). These schools were perfect in my book: close enough to where I could visit my hometown on the weekends but far enough so that my family wouldn’t be able to make a spur-of-the-moment visit to my dorm.

I was applying to all of my colleges as a musical theater major. Because I was involved in theater programs at my high school and participated in a few community productions outside of it, I thought musical theater would be the best choice for me since I had so many positive experiences with performing arts as a teenager.

To be honest, I’m not sure if theater was even something that I had a burning desire to pursue; it was just something that I was familiar with and I didn’t really know what other major I wanted to choose. I was into writing and liked to pen short stories in my spare time, but I didn’t think of this as something that I was good enough at to declare as my major.

It took me a long time to realize that regretting your decision on attending a specific university doesn't make you weak; when I first decided on leaving my school and attending a community college for a semester, I feared others (family, friends, peers) would judge me based on this, saying that I “couldn't handle it” and that they “knew I wouldn't be able to be away at school for long.” I allowed my own negative projections to cloud my judgment on a decision that was smart and the most practical (and economical!) for me.

Looking back, it's funny to me how much I thought anyone else's opinion but my own made a difference in what my decision was. My college experience is mine alone, and I don't need to validate anyone else's opinion on an education that they are not apart of. Transferring schools was a tough decision to make, but sometimes the hardest choices have the best payoff.