When I was little and heard about college, I always dreamed that it would be an adventure. I believed that college was the time to move far away and enter a brand new environment, where you could experience different places and meet different people. Who will you become when you’re miles away from everything you’ve ever known? Now that I’m older, I know college won’t be a grand voyage, but it’ll still be a time to venture out of my comfort zone. When my parents ask me where I want to go to college I always say “Far, far away from Kansas.”

One of the primary goals of education is not just to teach you new material. Yes, that is important, but in all honesty, you will find that many careers do not require you to know the distance formula or that racy 1920s women were called flappers. Instead, to succeed in most careers, employers look for someone with an open mind and the ability to think of new, novel ideas. College teaches us just that. Living in a new region exposes us to different walks of life. Part of our thinking process draws upon our experiences, and if we have only lived in Kansas for our entire life then that’s all we can take ideas from. It makes it harder to see things from a perspective different than a Kansan’s.

While there are negatives to consider when going out-of-state for college, the price being the major one, there are also a plethora of benefits. Don’t choose to skip applying for a college just because it’s not in Kansas and doesn’t offer the cheapest cost. Going out-of-state can help you develop new ways of thinking and gives you a wider range of experiences to draw from. Even though college isn’t what my childhood self imagined it to be, it has the potential to be an experience unlike anything you’ve ever had before – which is what an adventure is all about.