Welcome to my blog. If you are reading this, it probably means you know that I’m Maureen, a recent high school grad headed for Northeastern University in Boston. But if you didn’t know that, well, now you do.
I plan to major in journalism, but who knows. I mean college is for changing your mind, right? But that’s the plan for now. Even if I do change my mind in the next few years, one thing will always stay the same. I will always love to write. And hopefully you will always love to read.
I want to tell those of you who haven’t heard my reasons for choosing Northeastern what exactly led me to my new future. It all began last December when I was rejected from my first choice school, a little school now considered the thirteenth best school in the country, right up there with Harvard and Yale. It was their loss in my opinion. But I had only applied to three schools causing me to choose six new schools to apply to in just minutes as the January 1 deadline was fast approaching.
My godmother persuaded me to apply to Northeastern as a backup. She told me, “You never know. You might love it.” And what do you know, I did.
I visited the school in April shortly after hearing I had been accepted. The moment I walked into the round quad and took the tour, I had that “this is the one” feeling. Like your wedding dress and the man you marry, they say you just know when you’ve found “the one.” Well I had found mine. Hopefully Northeastern will fit like the perfect wedding dress, and love me as much as the perfect husband.
There were two reasons that helped me make the decision besides the tour and visit. One was the co-op program also known as experiential learning. This is a six month period of time taken anywhere from one to three times in four or five years. Starting second semester sophomore year I will have an actual job in the field of journalism in any city from Boston to New York to LA. After six months, I will return to school and continue on my path to graduation.
The second reason was the city of Boston itself. I would consider this one of the coolest places on earth. It is home to a people so full of pride, one of the greatest protests in the history of the world and some of the most brilliant minds in the country. It brought us the Boston baked bean, Boston cream pie and in a way, Facebook.
Another cool fact is that one in four people in Boston is a college student. Students in Boston are not just friends with kids from Northeastern, but also BU, BC, Harvard and MIT. I can’t even imagine the sorts of opportunities that await me.
But wait I must. For now, I’m enjoying my last few days in Colorado enjoying the dry atmosphere, high altitude and majestic mountains that greet me every day. I’m anticipating one of the biggest changes in anyone’s life. College is a big step for any eighteen-year-old, but going to college exactly 1,972 miles from home is an even bigger step.
But all I can do is be excited, nervous, anxious and open to all the change happening in my life. All I can do is have that “before” feeling, hoping that the “after” feeling comes sooner rather than later.
