Where Am I?

Being the son of two alumni, I always felt an obligation to attend Penn State.  My parents never coerced me into thinking such; it was just something I had determined on my own.  I always loved the trips to PSU with my dad where we'd watch football games in Beaver Stadium and walk around downtown to buy some t-shirts and sticky buns.  Penn State over time became what seemed to be a home away from home.  And those trips influenced my decision to come to Penn State greatly.  Not all campuses have their own town, or such a lively student body, but since Penn State was my first impression of college, I expected every other school to liken the same.  However, after going on college visits when my older brother was college searching, I quickly learned that life at Penn State was much different than at even Brown and Harvard.  But even then, I didn't really know what life at Penn State was.  Now, as a first-year freshman, I am learning and adjusting to that life.  This place is big quite frankly and no one here is holding my hand through anything.  Back in La Plata, Maryland (my hometown) everyone knew everyone and showed a southern hospitality.  But here, at Penn State, you're on your own.  That's why I often feel like the thinking man in the picture: alone, a bit scared, and wondering what to do.  Little by little I'm getting used to life here as a student, not a football spectator and as an adult rather than a child.  I still aimlessly walk around the gargantuan campus at times, but I'm becoming a little better at finding my way now.  Slowly, I make more friends.  Slowly, I open myself up to new things.  Slowly I'm moving away from life as an adolescent into a life as an adult.  But sometimes, at the end of those long days, I still find myself sitting at the foot of my bed wanting to go home, wanting to see old friends, wanting just one more year of home.  Someday I will call my dorm home, but to me Penn State is still a home away from home.