I may have said it a dozen times before, but one of Nazareth’s most attractive qualities for me was its location. Academics are obviously very important, and you don’t want to end up stuck in a program or on a campus you hate, but I think people tend to underestimate how important it is that the area around you contains the things you like and need for your hobbies. An easy example: I could never attend classes (or even live) in a city or suburb that doesn’t have a decent bowling alley. Everyone has small (and sometimes large) things like this that they might not consider when looking for schools; the really big one for me was hiking and climbing.
Don’t Rob Yourself of What You Enjoy
If you have a well-developed sense of what your hobbies are and require, but feel strongly that you’ll be fine at a college that doesn’t have them, I highly encourage you to give that notion a second thought. College is an unmistakably enjoyable experience, but just like everything else you have experienced, it often becomes a grind; the glitz and glamour eventually wears off and you are left with the task of enduring through academic challenges that will, if nothing else, test your ability to maintain composure and remain vigilant. Of course, it’s all worth the effort, and there are undeniably fun times to be had in and out of the classroom, but you may find yourself wishing you could spend a few hours (or even a whole weekend) indulging in your classic hobbies.
Not Too Close, Not Too Far, Just Right
At Nazareth I’m only 20 minutes away from the city (for all the normal stuff), an hour from Naples, two from Ithaca, and three from the Adirondack Wilderness area. I swear, if I don’t climb a high peak at least once a year I will go crazy, so it’s very important to me that there are some close by. Even in circumstances where I don’t have a whole weekend to climb the peaks I can still hit the local trails. New York has plenty of fabulous state parks and the Crescent Trails in Perinton are to die for.
Finding Your Center
Not only do I love hiking, but it also balances me out in a way that I can’t really explain well. After a week or two of nonstop study sessions, 150 pages of market research or tort law, and nightly essay proofreads and revisions, I often feel like a stick of dynamite with a lit fuse. There isn’t anything I’ve discovered that effectively brings me down like the skyline of a beautiful mountain ridge. I imagine (and have heard various accounts) that most people have something akin to this. My suggestion to you, as you consider the start of your college journey, is to be aware of what you need to stay balanced, and whether or not those things will be available where you’re headed.
