Life of a College Student (Patreon)

Ah... 21-year-old Lilith.

Sometimes I wonder how incredibly different my life would be if I had went to a different university. I ended up staying in my home town and attending the University of North Georgia, but other, and arguably better, schools were showing interest in having me. 

Where I live now in Gainesville, there are two universities: Brenau University and the University of North Georgia's Gainesville campus (I attended at the main campus in Dahlonega). Brenau was demanding my attention pretty intensely; it's a school more focused on things like art and theatre, but they have science departments too, of course. But I think their major theatre program is what brought me into their spotlight; back in high school, I was a thespian and was involved in the very first play to ever bring my school to victory at regionals and onto state to win second place (and we should have won first, seriously!). I think Brenau took a lot of interest in that and offered me a few scholarships trying to entice me to join their school. At that point in time, they were still an all-girls school, and the idea of that really turned me off... the idea of an all-anything sounded awful, honestly. Thankfully, now the school is open to everyone and I love the expansion it has made, especially into this diverse and growing city. 

Besides Brenau, there was an even better school calling my name on the most glorious campus that made you feel like you were on a university in the clouds, and I guess you kind of were; Young Harris is a college that sits at the very tippy top of a mountain in Towns County, Georgia. It may not sound like much, but it truly felt like a world all its own... the drive to the top made it feel like we were entering a different dimension and we were so high in altitude that you literally walked through clouds as you made your way around the campus. There was a constant moody fog that almost reminded me of some parts of Seattle. I'm not sure my life would have been so different had I went to Brenau...but Young Harris? It may have changed the course of my entire life. Unlike UNG that allowed off campus housing, one of Young Harris' stipulations was that all freshman and sophomore students must remain in on-campus housing. The dorms looked good, so that wasn't my biggest concern, and of course once you were a junior you could reside off campus. A lot of colleges run this way, but it triggered my anxiety like nothing before (considering this was my pre-medication days). Young Harris was offering me some pretty tempting sounding scholarships, too. Even though I toured the campus and had a splendid time (especially visiting their mildly famous planetarium that UNG does actually outshine), ultimately my anxious mind and body forced me into remaining in my small home town close to home. 

I wonder how much modeling I would have done if I had lived on campus at Young Harris. I would have been farther away from most of the photographers I know and ended up working with. I may have experimented with self-portraits, and who knows, maybe it's all inevitable anyway, but I could have had an entirely different outlook on life, different friends, different passions, maybe even a different degree. 

We'll never know. 

Maybe my anxiety lead me right to where I needed to be, or maybe it kept me from an amazing life consumed in the college lifestyle. I pretty much avoided a lot of the stereotypical college antics since I was afraid of everyone and everything and mostly just studied and hung out with people I already knew. 

Sometimes I really do miss college, thinking back, and I honestly wish I could even begin to afford getting my master's. Even if I never "use it," I love to learn and the information in this particular field is beneficial in so many ways. Imagine if we made education easier and more obtainable...where would we be as a society? 

We'll never know.  

18th Letter Photography
Atlanta, Georgia 2016