9 Reasons to Attend University Out-Of-State

1. Independence

   You’ve flown the nest! You don’t live in your parents’ home anymore. Being completely on your own is scary, and it might seem daunting, but pretty soon you’ll appreciate the perks of living on your own. For instance, you won’t have to worry about your parents nagging you to do chores, or constantly breathing down your neck over grades. Curfews are a thing of the past! Want to hang out with friends? Go ahead! You don’t have to ask permission.  You can relax, because the only person you have to answer to is yourself. Welcome to freedom!

    

2. Gain Survival Skills

   Laundry. Cooking. Dishes. Cleaning. Errands. These are skills needed to survive in the wild… or at least adulthood. You can’t run home to grab a home cooked meal and have your parents do your laundry. You live out-of-state now, which means it’s up to you to feed yourself and pick up your own messes. This may not seem like a perk, but learning to take care of yourself is a skill that you won’t learn in the classroom. Learning how to survive on your own now is just one more thing you won’t have to worry about after graduation. You are prepping to survive in the real world! And knowing you have that advantage feels pretty awesome.

3. An Interesting Fact!

   No one likes icebreakers, but everyone’s got to do them. Especially in college. “Share one interesting fact about yourself” is an especially stressful icebreaker. Don’t sweat it, though! Whether you’re a native Californian or Idahoan, you are now an interesting “Other”, because you’ve lived places and experienced things that your peers have not. Even casual conversations between acquaintances can be helped along by talking about your home state, and asking about theirs.

4. Meet People You Never Would Have Met Otherwise

   Attending college out-of-state is an opportunity to get to know the world around you, one person at a time. You don’t have to be best friends with everyone you meet, but the new people you run into while out-of-state will change how you think about yourself and others. Finding common ground as human beings is an amazing thing. It’s a crazy experience to talk to someone who grew up thousands of miles away, yet you can have common interests and experiences that make that divide seem inconsequential.

5. BE FRIENDS With Amazing People You Never Would Have Met Otherwise

   Without knowing it, you could have a best friend living across the country. You aren’t best friends yet, of course, but you’re destined to be! Making friends out-of-state is wonderful, because it makes the world a bit smaller, way less scary, and a whole lot friendlier.

    

6. Expand Your Horizons

   Don’t shut yourself into the confines of your home state’s boundary lines! What better way to really experience the many cultures of this country than to live out-of-state for four years? It may be the United States, but that doesn’t make it the Uniform States. From Southern comfort food to New York fashion, this country has a lot to offer, so don’t be afraid to immerse yourself into a new culture and find a niche for yourself!

7. Traveling On Your Own

   Attending university out-of-state means traveling – by yourself and outside your comfort zone. Whether you’ve traveled a lot before college or not, you usually had friends or family with you. So whether it’s driving for multiple hours, taking a bus, or flying, traveling long distances by yourself can be one of the best experiences. It’s a natural high, because even though you’re an adult now, you may not always feel like one. Traveling on your own is a daunting task for a newbie, but it comes with a huge rush of pride and accomplishment when you graduate to regular solo-traveler status. Without realizing it, you will go from dreading traveling on your own to looking forward to the next time you get to practice your suave traveling expertise!

8. Going Home Means More

   Going to school far from home means going long stretches of time without seeing family or old friends. You can’t head to your parents’ for the weekend, crash on the couch, and be back to school on Monday. It’s tough, I’m not going to lie. BUT, absence does make the heart grow fonder! Sure, you can’t run home whenever you feel like it, but that means that when you do finally get to see your family and spend time in your home state, you appreciate it. You realize how much your loved ones mean to you, and you genuinely couldn’t be happier to be home.

9. Two Places To Call Home

   Whether you are returning to your parents’ house for Christmas Break or returning to school for the upcoming semester, you are never really leaving home. Your out-of-state school becomes your second home, and what better feeling is there than the feeling of coming home?