By Kelsey Dayton
From the window of my apartment I can see mountains. On a nice
day there is a constant itch to be outside in either Grand Teton
National Park or on one of the many hiking trails near my home.
It’s funny to think that what I love best about living in
Jackson, Wyo., is a big part of what drove me 1,500 miles away
from home in Missoula, Mont., to Columbia, Mo., my sophomore year
of college.
I was born and raised in Missoula. I felt locked into a personality assigned
to me in second grade. No matter who I thought I wanted to become, I felt like
there were too many people who had already decided who I was.
With one of the state university’s main campuses in Missoula and the other
not offering a program I was interested in, I knew by the time I was a sophomore
in high school that I wanted to go out-of-state for college. My dream was to
get the college experience of being away from home, on my own and surrounded
by strangers and potential new friends.
I only nabbed a few scholarships my senior year of high school. I had only saved
a few thousand dollars from my minimum wage high school job. When my financial
aid came through, I was offered a loan that would barely cover room and board,
let alone out-of-state tuition.
At the last minute I enrolled at the University of Montana. It seemed silly to
pay thousands of dollars for a dorm when I had lived in the town my whole life,
so I spent part of the year in an apartment with friends and part living at home.
I already knew at least one person in each class I took. I hung out with the
same people I knew from high school. I worked the same jobs. Life didn’t
change much. A big part of that was my attitude. I was bitter. I saw people I
knew blossom freshmen year, trying new clubs or reaching out to new people. I
just went through the motions because that was all I had to do.
More loans came through for sophomore year. I knew I wanted to go into journalism.
To justify the debt I was about to take on, I figured I had to pick the best
journalism school - the University of Missouri. I had never even been in the
state of Missouri when my plane touched down the week before classes started.
Being a transfer student made everything more overwhelming. There are things
set up to help freshmen adjust, but there are no sophomore welcome events or
transfer student mixers, at least not that I was aware of. While I am sure I
could have attended the freshmen-focused events, I was torn. I wasn’t a
freshman and didn’t want to be thought of as one, but I also didn’t
know anyone.
Transferring is even tougher than leaving home as a freshman, where you are put
with others in the exact same situation. As a transfer student you are forced
to fend for yourself.
There were other headaches with transferring. Advanced placement credit that
counted at Montana didn’t count toward my program at Missouri. The summer
before I left, I took an English class that was a prerequisite for my first journalism
class. But I missed registration. Now I didn’t even have the opportunity
to meet those my age and in my program.
While I tested out of algebra in Montana, I had to re-test in Missouri. But I
missed the dates because they were sent to freshmen during the application process.
I ended up back in algebra second semester sophomore year, after already completing
my higher-level math class. I felt lost in the system.
I couldn’t remember why I had come. I often walked around campus, usually
at night when I felt less conspicuous. I almost always walked to the journalism
school and would stare at its brick buildings, which seemed so full of possibilities.
I tried to tell myself that college wasn’t about making friends, it was
about getting the best education possible, and I would get it here.
I longed for all the things I had wanted to get away from in Missoula. I missed
the mountains. More than anything I wanted to recognize a familiar face walking
across campus.
It took a while, but I started to make friends, mostly through jobs on campus
with other students, but also through learning to be friendly and outgoing. By
my junior year, life was full. There were late nights cramming for tests and
groggy mornings recounting the previous night’s adventures.
I have never cried so hard as when I left Columbia in May 2005. I don’t
know how many times I walked the campus the week before I left, clinging to friends
and pointing to every spot, trying to ensure a permanent recollection of each
moment and adventure we had had.
There are times I am filled with regret that I didn’t go the traditional
way and come to Missouri as a bright-eyed freshmen.
Transferring gave me what I was looking from a college experience. Those years
were the best of my life so far. It was a place where I felt academically stimulated
and where, eventually, I belonged. It was also where I learned about myself.
I never would have guessed that I am truly a mountain girl. I missed the hiking
and biking and smell of the outdoors. And I missed my family and the people who
have known me forever.
My degree opened doors to me. I interviewed at papers I don’t think would
have looked at me without my alma mater’s name on my résumé.
Now I’m in a town smaller than the one I first felt trapped by, but I appreciate
it because I left and experienced a different part of the country. I have a job
my degree and college experience helped me land. All the memories, plus my mountain
view, are enough to make me smile when writing out my student loan check each
month.
You can’t put a dollar amount on a life experience, and I got the best
from my decision to transfer.
Kelsey is a health and features reporter in Jackson, Wyo. She
graduated from the University of Missouri in May 2005 with a degree
in news editorial journalism. |
