From 93 Students to 10,000

By Kelsey Lange on April 5, 2017

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I swing open the heavy door to the lecture hall and take in every single unfamiliar face. My stomach immediately twists and turns with each step closer to the seats. I wish so hard to be in my familiar bedroom that I forget to take my next breath. Uncomfortable is an understatement as I adjust my positioning in the hard desk three times. My anxiety giggles in the back of my head. Maybe this isn’t for me.

Growing up in a small town gives you character. It also gives you a lack of character. Going to school with the same 93 students tends to box you into a reputation, even if it is not necessarily what you want to be recognized as. Throughout my younger years, I did not know that Midland Park was a small town. Bergen County, New Jersey is the home to many small towns, so even the surrounding ones were equal in size.

My alarm begins to blare at 5:55 a.m. With no suggestion of the sun, I switch on every light in my small, pink and green bedroom. The day begins just like every other; my younger brother and I take the two and a half minute drive to my high school. We greet my principle that we have each known for the past five years. The green and white hallways almost blur together through my tired eyes and I enter the band room. There are about 50 seats in the small room yet only half are filled. I join three of my friends at our seats and the day begins.

Throughout the next six hours, I sit in class with students that I have each individually known since we were five. I could effortlessly walk to each of their homes with a slow pace within 10 minutes. And there are virtually no secrets kept in a town that is one square mile in size.

I thought that classes that had less than 100 students were normal, though I did learn a lot about what living in a small town means. That is that your business and identity to the town does not belong to you, it belongs to everyone you go to high school with as well as their parents and grandparents.

Being on the shy side, going to a very small high school boxed me into only doing things that I was comfortable with. This is something I will always regret. Thankfully, I pushed myself to sing in a select singing group, be a part of all four musicals, play as first flute in the concert band, and get my writing and artwork published in the literary magazine.

However, doing sports was off the table for my high school career because I was uncomfortable doing something I did not have specific friends in. The girls who were part of the soccer team intimidated me so I didn’t push myself to do what I loved and instead let myself settle.

This exact reason is why I chose to go to college two hours away with 10,000 students that were all strangers to me. Growing up in Midland Park was not a bad experience for me. Honestly, it was great. But it was also extremely comfortable. I never knew anything other than my small town. I was perfectly content in being sheltered by not going anywhere outside of my comfort zone. Getting far enough away from everything and everyone that I knew was going to be great for me.

After finally making my decision to come to Kutztown University, the excitement died down and anxiety crept in. For months I would lay awake at night in my twin sized bed panicking about being in a place where a familiar face would be 93 miles away. I had never walked into a classroom where I did not recognize individual faces or backs of heads.

The thought of leaving my one square mile comfort zone scared me, but I knew it was what I wanted and had to do. The day my mom, dad, and brother drove away from my freshman dorm I sobbed in the parking lot watching the navy blue minivan disappear. But when I turned around, I found myself in a new world which I would call my home, though it would be a much bigger one than I was used to.

For the first month, I was uncomfortable, homesick, and sad. But I found small things that made me feel as if I was meant to have more than one place to call home. Friendship was one of the most important parts of feeling normal in Kutztown on top of keeping myself busy with a schedule.

By the time Christmas came around, the longest, yet shortest, months of my life had gone by. Pulling into my driveway felt weird. And turning my light on to my too-clean room made me smile. In the back of my head, I missed my lived-in dorm room. Winter break was a much-needed break from school work and being around friends and family filled the hole in my heart. I missed Midland Park so much.

What I thought as the least possible thing to happen happened. And I found myself counting down the days until I would be back at my second home. I began to believe that because I was so scared and anxious to open myself up to a whole new chapter in my life made the fact that Kutztown fit me like a glove feel that much better.

Over the past four years, both Kutztown and my roots of living in a small town have molded me into who I am today. Though it sounds cliché, stepping outside of my (literal) comfort zone pushed me to expand myself in more ways than I knew I could. Without making this decision for myself, and sticking through with it, I would have never been able to grow as much as I have.

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