I have just begun the second semester of my junior year! Quite honestly I have never felt more at home at Christopher Newport University than I do now. Looking back, I’ve realized that I began referring to going back to school as “going back home” as early as my freshman year. Don’t get me wrong, I love being home–home its where I can rest, relax and re-energize with friends and family in between semesters.
I have pretty much lived in the same house my entire life and I knew almost everyone I went to high school with because for the most part, they lived in the same house for their entire lives too. Familiarity is what I loved so much about being home and was also what I was most nervous about coming to Christopher Newport. Now, three years into it, I consider myself to have dual homes. My first home is where my family is, where I go to on breaks, where friends from Christopher Newport intercept me on our own travel plans on breaks. My second home is where Christopher Newport is because it is where my life-long friends are, where I’ve met challenges and have come out stronger and more able than ever.
I spent almost 18 years calling Northern Virginia home and now, in three short years Christopher Newport has become home too. As I’m attempting to pen all the many reasons why Christopher Newport is home to me, I’m realizing that it has been in the details. Those little details are things like becoming best friends with my freshman year roommate, becoming involved in campus activities, having professors get to know me as me, attempting to make it to as many on campus speakers, seeing broadway shows at the Ferguson Center of the Arts (at a discounted student price!), always having the opportunity to say hello to someone as I walk to class, speaking with President Trible when he’s on campus, knowing my peers and professors in class, and last but certainly not least (or even last for that matter, just have to end my list somewhere) the incredible opportunities I’ve been given as a Christopher Newport student that I would not have elsewhere.
Christopher Newport is a special place. It is home to me and my friends, I know that even after graduating it will always have a nostalgic sense of home. As I have come to realize in these last three years, I have understood how hard it is to move and make where you live feel like home. Making school feel like home wasn’t really by my force it was the atmosphere of this school, the equal opportunities it has for its students and the faculty and staff that make Christopher Newport feel like home-home.
