Make the most of your college experience, they say. Enjoy it while you can, they say. Take chances, they say. Okay, they. Thanks a lot, they.

Maybe you’re like I was my first semester at UNA and you want to take “they”’s advice but are not sure how exactly to make that happen.

I’ll save you some time and just tell you. Eleanor Roosevelt is famously quoted for having said, “Do one thing every day that scares you.” For freshmen and incoming transfers, the most frightening thing can be separation from the familiarity of home. Even more frightening is deciding to ignore the call of home and thrust yourself into the great unknown head first and limbs flailing.

Whether you live three minutes away, three hours away or three days away, I’m issuing this challenge: stay put until Thanksgiving Break. That seems like a really long time from now, and I know the home fire’s a-burnin’ and those chicken and dumplings on the stove are calling your name. Sit. Stay. Get comfortable. Because you know what happens here when you leave all your friends behind to go home for the weekend? Things. Things you could have been doing here, meeting those people you didn’t know, being included in all the inside jokes that you could be laughing about next week if you hadn’t gone back home for the weekend and caught up on TBS reruns.

The beauty of attending a university located at the dead-end of main street is that you get both UNA and the town as a package deal. I encourage you to take ownership of this town and do it both feet in.

I didn’t know a single soul when I came here my freshman year, so I started by pulling up a Google Maps tab on my computer. I memorized the nearby restaurants, street names, hiking spots – basically, as much as I could. In case you’re wondering where to start, I’ve compiled a list (hi, my name is Elise, and I’m a profuse list-maker). These are just a few things that you really, really ought to have accomplished before hitting the dusty trail that leads back home:

• Made it to a first-name basis with at least two Sodexo employees
• Gotten yourself so miserably lost that you have to switch to a map of Tennessee to even begin to find your bearings
• Crammed so many of your friends into a car for a 2:30 a.m. McDonald’s run that you can’t fit everyone inside without rolling down the windows
• Earned a paycheck
• Gained ten pounds worth of Ricatoni’s dinner bread
• Lost ten pounds walking around at First Fridays
• Nearly gotten a nosebleed from the awkwardness of a situation
• Karaoke. Just karaoke.
• Strung up a hammock in Wildwood park

Pick a few. Add you own! Your rule of thumb here is to go home only when you have volumes of stories to share. I know it’s tempting to indulge in the comforts of home, but home can wait, and so can relaxing and peace and quiet and all the rest.

I wish for you the painfully awkward and the refreshingly unpredictable. Welcome home.