Freewrite: How I learned which college was right for me

The process of learning at which school I belonged took me almost two full years. At the age of sixteen when I first started looking at colleges I was set on Lewis & Clark College, a (very) small private liberal arts college in Portland, Oregon. For some reason I knew that was where I belonged. It felt like I would fit in there, and it was comfortable for me. There were several events, conversations, and experiences, in the first year which lead me to believe that LC was not the right school for me. I disregarded those thoughts after I traveled down to California the summer after freshmen year. During the summer I had said to myself, "This year is going to be better than the last, you will finally love it there." To my little surprise, I disliked it even more my sophomore year. It was easy to entertain the idea of leaving during my freshman year but after a much hate sophomore year I had to make the tough decision to leave such a great opportunity. I don't regret going there, because it was the right place for me for a while, and it taught me a lot about myself. Even though it was such a fantastic opportunity, it wasn't the perfect place for me.

What made the decision almost even harder was that if I did decide to leave I had no plans on where to go. I decided to leave during the summer and by that point, the time to apply to the UW (the college I decided was right for me) was a couple months gone. Would I take a quarter off? Would I lounge around in my pajamas all quarter? Although this has nothing to do with my learning experience, this is the outcome of it all… The fact is, I have learned more about where I belong, and who I want to surround myself with, in the short amount of time since I have left Lewis & Clark than I ever would have if I were still there.