By now, most seniors in Middletown High School have heard back from colleges and have made their decision upon where to go.

After the chilling relief from getting accepted to my dream school, everything about the idea of going to college feels surreal.

However, when I visited the campus for Accepted Students Day, I opened the next chapter of my life.

After waking up to a blaring alarm at four in the morning, I packed up my stuff for the day and headed out on a four-hour road trip up to the Fashion Institute of Technology in NYC.

We arrived around 11:30 a.m. and immediately I started to see my future classmates heading in the same direction as me. We are all there for the same thing.

Throughout the day, I met new people, asked questions, but overall, I realized that this was going to be my new life for the next four years.

Then I thought that my other classmates must be feeling the same way. We all grew up with certain people our whole lives and now its about to instantly change forever.

I expect that there will be numerous waves of nostalgia wafting through students as they pack up everything they know and leave home for a higher education.

Some will still stick around, but still move on to new endeavors as their younger years of education has been completed.

Nothing will be the same because change is inevitable, especially during this point in time.

For me, I know that I won’t be back in Middletown permanently, but living here for the majority of my life has let me realize that I need to leave and pursue greater things.

High school has not only taught me the educational basics, but on a more social level, it has let me evolve in more ways than one. Now I can take these skills into different situations that will be crucial to my future career and life lessons.

It’s now time to leave FIT for the day. I sucked up enough information that I’ll need for later and quickly started new friendships.

My chapter is starting as my other is ending and I can already tell it will be better than the last.

My message for my classmates is to not say good-bye, but hello to a world you haven’t even seen yet. College is something greater and shouldn’t be taken for granted.

That was one of the last thoughts I had while walking off campus before returning for the fall semester.