How this first-gen college student chose her school, geared up for life away from home

I’m an upcoming freshman at Northern Illinois University. I’m going to be majoring in marketing.

My mom doesn’t want the baby bird to go out of the nest, so she’s low-key really sad about it. I’m her only child. It’s just been me and her all my life. So she just doesn’t know how not to mom.

I’m going to leave a bunch of sticky notes around the house with random messages. So that way for the first couple of days, maybe weeks depending on how good I hide a couple of the sticky notes, she’s going to open various things and then see little notes left by me. She’s going to open the air fryer, and the note’s going to say, ‘I wish I was having some of this.’

I graduated from Ridgewood High School [in Norridge], but for the majority of my high school career I went to Proviso East [in Maywood].