Now that fall break has come and gone and everyone has returned to school from their long weekend, I realized just how much Seton Hall has transformed me.
After spending the break with all of my hometown friends and family, doing the things I was accustomed to doing my whole life, I began to miss walking around on campus and the people that I would see. On the ride back to South Orange I felt that I was not just going back to my school, but to my other home.
Obviously no place will ever replace my hometown of Mantua Township because that is where all of my immediate family members are located.
I feel a direct connection to Mantua Township; I know I belong there. However, as the days pass by at Seton Hall, the school environment has started its transformation into my home as well. I feel like I belong at Seton Hall, and the people here hold a special place in my heart. I truly cannot see my life without this place.
My whole college experience as a freshman has been great so far and after venturing back to my hometown to find that everything was still the same, that short drive back upstate to Seton Hall was refreshing.
I had my fill of my hometown and remembered why I was so eager to leave in the first place. By being able to come back up to school and feel right at home, I realized that there is nothing overly special about Mantua Township, except that my family lives there and I have hometown friends there.
Not to talk bad about Mantua by any means, it will always be the place where I was born and raised, but at this moment, Seton Hall feels just as much like home. Mantua lost its position as the only place where I felt at home; it lost all it really ever had.
While my family and friends still live in my hometown, I realized that Seton Hall holds a special place in my heart. There are professors and fellow students here that make Seton Hall feel like home.
Dennis Chambers is a freshman journalism major from Mantua Township, NJ. He can be reached at dennis.chambers@student.shu.edu.