What it was like to go from small town California to the University of Oregon

You look around and every single face you see is familiar. Whether it’s from sports, the art club, fellow classmates, or the person underneath you at your locker, you recognize every single face and can almost to a tee recall their full name and possibly any siblings they have also attending the school. This is what is is like to attend a small private school of less than 300 kids. I grew up in Central Valley California, a city called Modesto known for “meth, death, and auto theft”.

Don’t let that label fool you, there was more to the city than the Downtown scene where the crime rates were the highest, but the taco trucks were the best. Located off of highway 99 at a dead end off Sisk Road, lives Modesto Christian.

Starting in kindergarten to graduating high school, I invested 13 years of my life there.

Creating what I realize now, the most unique relationships ever. Not just in regards to friends but in almost every aspect — parents, teammates, teachers, staff, etc. I may not have enjoyed every second of my high school experience (did anyone?) but in the long run, my intimate and unique high school pushed me to reach beyond 240 people and more toward 24,000.

With all their differences high school and college will always be the two most memorable stages of my life.

There were how many people in your class?

Oh the joys of Gen Ed classes full of fresh peeps eager to pick the best seat out of 500. Contrary to your high school classrooms where your buddies surrounded you every way you looked and the teacher actually knew your name, college can be a bit lonely and impersonal at times.

This drastic transition from 30 classmates to 500 can be intimidating, but thanks to the non-credit discussion sections you can meet friends in your class in no time.

I don’t have to hang out with certain people if I don’t want you?

You love your high school friends and are sad to split ways but, it has to happen. Sweet sweet peer pressure of fitting in with your classmates, or else face inevitable shunning from your peers.

Welcome to college where if you don’t want to see someone, you simply don’t have to!

Feel free to be yourself because that is what will make you those true genuine friends that will (hopefully) last a lifetime.

So, the teachers don’t also coach a sports team?

In my hometown, those familiar faces that lecture you on neat handwriting and the proper use of the pythagorean theorem also take on the role of coach. There is nothing like your Biology teacher failing you on a test and then yelling at you to run around the track until your legs give out. Yet another example of close knit relationships in the small town high school experience.
In college, things work a little bit different. No more equal playtime, we are in it to win it. These teams are comprised of the best of the best, and only the best can coach them.

I don’t have a curfew anymore?

This may or may not apply to you, but for those less fortunate in high school we were restricted by the infamous c word. There might not be anything worse than leaving all your friends having a good time to go back home and munch while watching the snapchat stories upload one by one.

Welcome to college where no one really keeps track of your whereabouts. Party till the break of dawn or hibernate all weekend and binge watch Netflix. Either one sounds pretty enticing to college students. Regardless, you leave and return as freely as you’d like.

They did what last night?

That’s right, everyone in the town knows what happened and who did it. Word travels fast in a small town and even faster at a school of less than 300. A culture shock occurs when relocating to a school that adds a couple zeros onto that number. Rather than seeing every familiar face on the trip to class, you are amongst a crowd of complete strangers mixed in with the occasional acquaintance spotting — in that case you better run and scream their name as loud as you can so everyone else knows you have at least one friend!

Don’t worry too much about that embarrassing pick up line you tried to drop last night or not seeing the first step to a set of stairs walking into a party, trust me your peers have moved on. So scroll through those hilarious pictures you might not remember taking and prepare to do it all over again the next night. 

Sporting events are celebrated differently, friendships feel less forced, and can you even believe you used to have school for 7 hours a day, five days a week? College appears to be the ultimate dream, and while the cliquey friend groups and nosey peers make it difficult to enjoy a small school, the experience shaped me and prepared me for where I am today. I am thankful for the personal relationships with teachers that did more than teach, the spirit squad of 30 people at every sporting event, and for the small hometown I am from that pushed me to seek greater things.

I truly have a better appreciation for the roaring stands filled with tens of thousands of passionate fans, the 500 student class that made me feel minuscule, and the constant stream of unfamiliar faces I see as I walk to class.