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  Head-to-Head: Why did you enroll at IVCC?
    The value of college is up to the student

    By Maggie Rhynes
    IV Leader Staff

    The college selection process is a scary decision, the kind that looms over your head, making you constantly second guess yourself. Okay, so maybe it was only that dramatic for me. It began sophomore year, I bought a book that profiled the countries best colleges. I brought the book home only to find that some bazaar printing error had left the book without the section on Illinois and Indiana schools. A sign from the gods that I was destined for out-of-state tuition? In retrospect no, more like a sign I was destine for community college.
    I decided what it was I was looking for in a college and what I wasn't. Then I waged an inner battle over the merits of paying $40,000 a year for an education. Is that really a good idea?
    I visited many a college and I didn't like any of them. Then I decided, maybe I hadn't found another place to call home because I liked the place I was already calling home! I was appalled at my own thought. For two years I had been assuring my mother that I was not going to IVCC (her idea all along). Harvard on the Hill! Diet college! The place where people who can't get in anywhere else go! That's what I'd heard about IVCC. But it was about to become my college of choice. My immediate family was thrilled to hear they would be housing me for a few more years. My boyfriend was pleased he didn't have to find another girlfriend.
    So how did I end up here? I don't know, I have no great insight into the college selection process. In the end, it wasn't the insightful questions about what I was looking for or a persuasive admissions counselor, it was just a feeling. It was just what felt right; what felt like home.
    So, here I am at IVCC, living on the philosophy that life and college are what you make them. Could IVCC be a blow off college? Sure. Could Harvard, Yale or ISU be a blow off college? You bet. Can I party every weekend and forget that I even go to college? Yep. Do I study until the wee hours of the morning to pass a final? Unfortunately.
    Am I happy with my choice to attend Harvard on the Hill? You're damn right I am, because a lot of thought went into this decisions and I wouldn't change it for anything.
    IVCC has given me incredible opportunity and some very good friends, both of which I had to go and find on my own…but I guess that's just the way college works, whether your Harvard is on a hill or in Massachusetts, it’s all about what you make it.

 Go to the other Head to Head: IVCC helps open doors to bright future

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