The feeling of touching down at the airport after visiting home is one-of-a-kind. It’s the excitement of returning to Hopkins, it’s the gratitude for having seen my family…and it’s the reminder that I have to “adult” again now. I go to school in Maryland and come from Florida, but on a recent flight, I sat next to someone who is in the opposite situation: Her family lives near Baltimore, and she just graduated from a college around 10 minutes from my childhood home.
As soon as I realized we drove to the airport from the same neighborhood, I became curious about why she chose to live there. What attracted her to my little Floridian suburb, whose town hall is an unassuming building in a strip mall and whose surroundings boast beaches and nightclubs and venues? My favorite part of the town is its nature — especially human nature, the people there who make me proud to call it home. But when you pick a place to live, you can’t know about its hidden gems. What brought her there?
It turns out she was tricked. Sort of. Her university advertised its location as close to the city, the beach and the consequential nightlife. My mom and I would always laugh at those claims when we drove past its signage. Though the college has great programs and opportunities, it is at least a twenty-minute drive from anything vacation-worthy. While slightly disenchanted by her college’s location, she enjoyed its programs and enjoyed her time there — that’s what truly matters.
Similarly, I came to college in a city I’d never visited. When I first drove through Baltimore’s streets on move-in day, I remember wondering what I’d signed up for. I was expecting skyscrapers, not row houses. And I knew Baltimore for its reputation, not its reality.
I have had a journey and a half discovering Baltimore for what it is, and there is still much of the city that I haven’t explored. As with my hometown, though, the people in Baltimore have made me realize what an incredible city it is.
My very first week here, my First Year Mentor took my group to the 32nd Street Farmers Market, where I met Megan Lovely through her Story Seeds initiative. That day, we exchanged numbers. And a few months later, we exchanged life stories over matcha from Bird in Hand and homemade ube bread. I learned about the circumstances that brought her to Baltimore and about the communities that turned the city into a home for her.
As I continued getting more involved outside of Hopkins, I met more and more locals, and I discovered more and more reasons to love my new home. In the months since that first trip to the Farmers Market, I have connected with a Cuban merchant over our shared language, enjoyed pizza in Little Italy with people from my networks and hiked the area’s state parks with friends born and raised in Maryland. Just by exploring the area immediately around Hopkins, I befriended a Brazilian whose exchange program brought her to Waverly, bonded with a local librarian over our shared love of young-adult novels, and flipped out over the fact that there is a ridiculously good Argentine restaurant just a walk away.
What I’m trying to get at here is that you should visit a college before deciding to spend the next four years of your life in its city. Well, not entirely. The grass will always look greener on the other side. University advertisements and posters reading, “Visit this city!” will always try to showcase the best aspects of an area’s landscape… but you have to get to know a place for what it is. Like the student sitting next to me on that airplane, I was not entirely sure what I was getting myself into when I moved a thousand miles for college. Also, like her, though, I got lucky that I ended up in a community I am proud to call home. And, next time I fly back home and drive past that college, I’ll try to look at it through new eyes — with the perspective of a Marylander seeing south Florida’s palm trees for the first time.
Sara Kaufman is a sophomore from Fort Lauderdale, Fla. majoring in Biomedical Engineering. Her column focuses on the experiences she’s had and lessons she’s learned outside the classroom.
