Why I haven’t left Iowa
I grew up here, and I decided to stay here for university too
If you live in Iowa you’ve probably driven through a water tower town like the one I’m from. You know, the ones where everyone graduates with the same people they went to kindergarten with and outsiders think everyone marries their cousins.
Well for the record, the people in the picture below did go to kindergarten with me, but they aren’t related to me, even though they might as well be. I’m so lucky to have come from a place where my family and community members were beyond supportive. Our town is a place where everyone, and I mean everyone, will band together to help students succeed in anything they do.
Whether it’s getting The Tab Iowa to 500 likes, or helping a student be voted Iowa’s player of the week, our community was always behind the success 100 percent. The people who watched me grow up made not only me, but many others feel like they could accomplish anything.
Growing up in a tight knit community can be more influential than expected. I never knew how much I appreciated the sound of nothingness in a place full of nothing, yet at this stage in my life I have learned to love the noise in a city full of chaotic productivity. When it came time to decide where I wanted to go to school, the choice was obvious: The University of Iowa.
Being the first of my family to attend a public university was a huge and scary step, and little did I know, I ended up being completely and utterly captivated with the city life and Iowa City itself. I knew the first time I stepped on campus that The University of Iowa was exactly where I was supposed to be, and I’m not the only one who felt like this.
Pictured above is my friend, and fellow dorm resident, Alaina Gerbers. Alaina is an out of state student from Green Bay, Wisconsin.
She said: “I chose to go to Iowa because I really liked the wide variety of majors it has to offer. I also wanted to be at a big school and love the combination of being at a large university but still a small city.
“It has a different feel than Madison and Minnesota, which are the other two school I looked at. I actually looked at eight schools. Iowa was the last one I visited and I loved it. I only ended up applying to two schools because I knew I wanted to go here.”
Although she had almost no doubt in her mind where she wanted further her college education, homesickness settled in after move-in day commenced.
“All summer I was looking forward to move in day. After I moved in it did not take long for me to be homesick. I wasn’t able to come home much in the first semester because I haven’t been able to find a lot of people from the Green Bay area.
“I’m more of a homebody than I thought I was and it was shocking to both my family, friends, and myself.”
Homesickness is a huge concern to almost any college student, especially out of state students, making distance a huge factor when choosing a school. Despite the fact Alaina has been homesick, she still has a positive outlook towards The University of Iowa. “I wish there was a school like Iowa in Wisconsin,” she says, “because that would be perfect, but I will have to figure out what I’m willing to compromise on.”
Living two and a half hours from home is handy, but I didn’t choose Iowa just for convenience.
Similar to Alaina, I came to Iowa because of the wide variety of majors, although I told myself time and time again, I wouldn’t be one of those people who switched. Originally my major was Pre-Physical Therapy, but I wasn’t loving the science involved, so I recently followed my gut instinct and switched to journalism, definitely one of my better decisions.
Not only is Iowa versatile, but in state prices were much more manageable than those compared to out of state schools, and why wouldn’t you attend a school where you know plenty of people in the area? Having home and a few of my good friends close by has made college at the U of I even more fun than I expected. Minus the bipolar weather conditions, Iowa is and always will be my kind of place.