If you told me freshman year that my top choice for college was an art school, I wouldn’t believe you. Why? Because, all of my life, DePaul University was always my top choice. I come from a long line of DePaul alumni, one being my father. I wanted to follow in my dad’s footsteps. Growing up I was always daddy’s little girl. I wanted to be just like him, I wanted his job, I wanted to go to his college. I wanted to make him proud. So DePaul was always to goal. And as I was going through the college process, I obviously visited campuses.

I started with Columbia College, I went in with the mentality of DePaul was where I belonged even though I never visited DePaul.

And as soon as I stepped foot onto Columbia's campus, I felt calm.

I had this aha moment - I felt like this was exactly where I belonged. And as I advanced through my college process, I began thinking about this feeling I had. I realized that I have had this feeling before; it dawned on me that this was the same exact feeling I had when visited Elgin Academy for the first time.

I transferred into EA the start of my 7th grade year. Prior to that I’ve spent my whole academic career at one school, a school where I was bullied from pre-school up, until I left at the end of my sixth grade year. Sixth grade will forever be burned into my memory as one of my worst school years. I felt like I was pushed up against a wall, I felt alone in my class of 10; I felt like everyone hated me and that I didn’t have a place. When my parents decided to pull me out and transfer me into Elgin Academy, I was terrified.

My thought process was that If I didn’t fit into a school where I had spent my whole life, how in the world was I going to fit into a brand new school, with brand new people. I remember the drive from my house to Elgin Academy on the day I shadowed. I felt sick, I felt anxious, I was horrified. My mother kept telling me that this was okay, that EA will be a better place for me, I didn’t believe her I was more willing to put up with two more years of inevitable bullying and then go on to high school just to avoid this anxious feeling.

But once we had pulled into EA, I felt calm, I felt like I belonged there. All the thoughts of "What if everyone hates me?" and "What if I shadow there and end up attending and everyone treats me like an outcast?" left. I felt at home, and once I began my day at EA I felt like I was always there, my class had welcomed me like I was already part of this big family. They did the complete opposite of what I was expecting, of what a school I grew up in trained me to do, they treated me like I was a friend.

I remember telling my mother that I wanted to go to EA, I wanted to start the next day, because at Elgin Academy I felt like a person. It didn’t change when I transferred in officially, EA has this reputation, especially with my class that everyone is one big family, I can honestly say that Elgin Academy has been my second family, my second home for all these years. And that was the one thing I wanted with my college, I needed somewhere where I would feel at home, I knew my transition into college was going to be similar to my transition into Elgin Academy. I needed to know that I felt like I belonged in a place that I was spending the next four years. And that’s the feeling I had the minute I stepped onto Columbia College’s Campus. I learned that home isn’t a place. It's a feeling.