The very term "adventure" conjures up images of far away destinations filled with the glamorous and the unknown. The fact they're unknown make them all the more intoxicating; you can fill in the blanks with your own ideas of what the destination will be like once you get there and there are no prior experiences of the destination that can burst your bubble. The new-ness of the destination makes even venturing there feel exciting.

But what if you're not venturing into to a far off destination for college? What if you're going to a school a short drive or train ride from where you went to high school and where you grew up for years and years? With your hometown so accessible, it can be easy to feel slightly waning enthusiasm when thinking about the transition to college as a rising freshman. It's so easy to wonder if you're missing out on some critical puzzle piece of growing up when it seems you'll be close enough to your hometown that it'll feel as though you've barely left.

Regardless of whether you go to school five minutes or five hours away from home, college will be an adventure. You're surrounded by an entirely new group of people who grew up in very different ways than you did and have very different views, a start difference from the relative uniformity of viewpoints from your high school. In college, you're nearly universally treated as an adult, and you have to respond to those new expectations accordingly. You'll be given opportunities to delve more deeply into the field of study you chose, and the autonomy to pursue what you're passionate about is liberating in and of itself.

Adventure isn't dictated by distance or glamour; your experience at a college can't be superficially judged in advance by what "vibe" you got when you walked around the campus as a high school junior or senior, so even being at a college that seems outwardly ordinary and familiar isn't indicative of how it would be to actually go there. Even if a college seems too close to home and too familiar, the memories you'll make and the new perspectives you'd gather as an attending student needn't be.

But when college becomes straining, as all new but wonderful things do, there's absolutely nothing wrong with relying on your family for help, especially if they're so nearby. Independence needn't be at the expense of support from loved ones, and with the proper balance, you can still get the "college experience" and grow tremendously over your four or more years of undergrad, and enjoy a home-cooked meal and long conversation at home without guilt or a fear of missing out.