A year ago around this time I moved into State College wide-eyed and scared out of my mind.

I didn't know where to buy books. I couldn't even tell you where the HUB was. I carried a map around campus and got lost a million times.

I couldn't stop staring at the crowds of people. Once I drove the wrong way down College Avenue on a football weekend.

I felt alone.

State College was a strange place where nobody knew my name.

I remember walking by a group of people with my trusty map in hand. I tried to hide the map, but it was too late.

One of the guys laughed, pointed and said, "Look at the little freshman."

No, I wasn't a freshman, thanks. Actually I was a junior. I transferred from a Hicksville campus of Penn State (the DuBois campus, to be exact).

Coming from a branch campus with four buildings (counting the gym), University Park was a mystery to me.

To make matters worse, it seemed like everyone else had a handle on this place.

After two years of classes of no more than 30, I almost passed out when I realized there were more than 300 people in my Biology class. I never lived in the dorms. I never enjoyed any of the breaking in that University Park freshmen had.

Nobody held my hand and gave me a tour of campus.

Other schools with smaller student populations started looking really good. I seriously thought of transferring, but I am overwhelmingly stubborn and refused to admit defeat. A week went by, and I decided that the monster called State College wasn't going to break me. I was going to love it, or, well, at least I was going to fake loving it.

I lounged in the sun on the Old Main lawn and watched people play Frisbee while I did homework. Sitting on the cold stone steps of the Willard Building, I listened to the crazy ramblings of the Willard Preacher and made friends with people who thought he was insane too. I smiled when I felt like crying, and I talked to everyone around me.

That's when something really strange happened. My love affair with University Park began.

State College is where I found myself. It helped to mold me into the independent person I am today.

I quit wanting to be the needy person I once was. I really liked doing things by myself. No longer was I reliant on anyone but myself. Not to say it was all fun and games. Pardon the cliché.

It was hard explaining to people that loved me why I was different. My family thought I had gone completely insane when I quit coming home every weekend to visit. I lost a few friends and ended a long-term relationship because I had changed so much.

However, I am now more myself than I ever was. And I would never change a thing -- I have never been happier.

A year later I find myself moving into a new apartment, and I am starting to think about fall classes again. Trudging up the stairs with a 50-pound box of shoes, I realize that my college years are growing short.

Next year at this time I am going to be looking for a job in a strange place where nobody knows my name.

Sounds kind of familiar.