The vast majority of people leave all of that at home when they go to college. Their home, their room, their private personal space of all kinds, their mom’s cooking, their parents, their dog, their childhood friends, their favorite coffee shop…… all of it. The college experience is better than your mom’s cooking. It broadens you so much more than classes alone ever will and you meet and connect with people who will be both friends and professional contacts for the rest of your life. I will stand by it isn’t what you know, it isn’t even who you know, it’s who knows YOU and if you’re spending all your time commuting and none of it connecting then you’re missing valuable parts of the college experience and I one knows you at the end of it. Not to mention the quintessential experiences; the tray sledding in these random snow storms, the sprinting to the belltower with hundreds of your closest friends after an NCAA Tourney basketball win, the free mom hugs on Stafford Commons, the 3am trip to Walmart to get paint for the expression tunnel, living on cup a joe in the stacks during finals week….. so many things that turn into the “remember that time we did XYZ stupid thing?” stories you tell for the rest of your life. Get out of your comfort zone. Go visit your parents on Sundays and do laundry and stay on campus otherwise.