“New York to State College”

By Victoria Hopple

- Age 13, State College

Life is full of changes. As I approach my fourteenth year of life, I am realizing how much change life can have. I was born in Georgia, and I lived there until I was one year old. We then moved to New York and lived there until 2005. I enjoyed a wonderful childhood filled with friends, vacations, playdates, and family. So it was with great hesitancy that I accepted my parents’ decision to move to State College.

I loved my life. I loved my friends. My dad’s job wanted to transfer him to a GE plant down here in Pennsylvania. If it weren’t for that we would never have moved here. The GE plant is in Lewistown, we heard that the schools weren’t very good and it wasn’t a very good place to live, so we moved to State College. My dad has to drive about a half an hour every day to get to work. He doesn’t mind it at all. So it was all because of my dad’s job that we moved here to State College. My first impressions of State College were that it was going to be really busy because it was a college town. Most of my first impressions were good ones though. I really couldn’t think of anything bad about it. My dad went to college here so he said it was a really good place to live. There seemed to be plenty of good places to go so it seemed that it would never get boring.

I also liked that there was a downtown and a lot of places on campus to see. I was really excited to see the clock tower, and I had heard that State College has one the best fireworks shows to see. So I knew I would never get bored. There were a lot of first impressions of State College, never any bad ones.

There are so many different things that I love about State College. I love how everything is really close by. My family and I can walk to downtown or a few restaurants that we are close to. I also love how friendly the people are around here. In New York they weren’t so friendly. So it was nice to come to a place that the people were so friendly. I love how I have so many friends. In New York I never had as many friends like I do now. I would never have guessed that I would have so many. So over all I can’t really find something that I don’t love about State College.

I feel that if I never had moved here I wouldn’t be so happy. Moving from New York to here was the biggest move that I could really remember and understand. I don’t think I would have changed anything about moving here. I can really reflect on the move now that I am getting older. It has really made me a stronger overall person. Yes, life is full of changes. It’s a good thing too, because I love State College.