Many people ask “why Simpson?” especially when you live halfway across the country.

In Washington state, I live near the mountains in the woods where it rains everyday, where I can drive to Seattle in one hour, and where the traffic is so horrible that it takes hours to drive a few miles on the freeway in rush -hour traffic. The Pacific Ocean is close, and we have to ride on ferries in order to play against other schools in my high school conference. Iowa is completely different, and that is what I wanted when deciding where to go to college.

I have lived in Washington State since preschool. I knew I wanted to get away from home and experience college in another state; I didn’t want to be able to drive home whenever I felt like it. I also knew I wanted to go to a small college, where people know their teachers and classmates and it feels more like a community.

I looked at schools in Alaska, Colorado and Iowa. I chose Simpson for many different reasons. First of all, I was born in Des Monies, and I have family that lives throughout the state. I have been visiting Iowa yearly my whole life, so I am somewhat familiar with the area. I knew I would have a family support system in place which is comforting being so far away from home.

The summer of my junior year in high school, while visiting my grandparents in Iowa, my mother set up a meeting with Coach Christowski, the head softball coach at Simpson, and her former high school coach, to work on some pitching drills. While working with him, I was able to meet some of the softball players. The next year when I decided to visit the college, I sat in on a class and liked the small class size where the professor knew all the students’ names.

I also stayed with one of my future teammates and it was a great experience. The more people I met at Simpson, the more I knew that this was where I wanted to go to school.

Being an out-of-state student is not that different from being an in-state student. Out-of-state students do get treated differently at times. Since I am an out-of-state student, I always have a good conversation starter, and when I meet new people they always remember me as “that girl from Washington state”.

I get to go home over winter break and during the summer, but I do feel that I miss out at times, especially on long weekends and breaks when everyone else goes home. But I chose this school and knew it was a long way from home.However, it is nice to know that I am not the only out of state student that attends the Simpson College.