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The University of Massachusetts Amherst is a place that can give you deep connections that you will never experience anywhere else. Bella found these connections after she decided to leave Martha’s Vineyard to go to school in Amherst. She reflected upon her famous but small hometown very positively but remarked that when it is not bustling with tourists in the summer, “the population cuts in half at least and it’s kind of a little ghost town. It’s like any other small town in Massachusetts except there are no surrounding towns, it’s quite isolated.” 

This upbringing in the Vineyard had Bella thinking that she should go to a small liberal arts college. She admitted that she only “applied to UMass because it’s your state school—you kinda have to.” However, when Bella toured UMass, she saw that the big school experience might suit her better than a small college.
    
Bella was convinced to try a big school because of the freedom that it could offer. She felt she “wanted to try out somewhere bigger and somewhere that offered the opportunity to make your own club or major or anything like that.” This is an idea that many large state universities advertise, but in Bella’s experience “UMass seems the best at handing that to its students.” She has taken advantage of this freedom to get involved and create a pathway that is unique to her, including a double major in psychology and journalism. Bella is a dedicated podcaster with the Daily Collegian student newspaper along with her classes.

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In addition to all the opportunities that come with a big school, Bella has also come to appreciate UMass for its community and its size. “Being from a small island” she remembers feeling that “it was so different having all these other things around me,” referring to the large campus and the even more expansive world around it that is Western Massachusetts. “Going from there being only one high school in your area to a place that has so many different kinds of people and backgrounds and things to do and opportunities—I’ve loved it. And while there are aspects of UMass and Amherst that are more urbanized, it’s pretty rural. You can go to farms and go hiking yet you’re still around so many other young people.” 

Within this community of young people, Bella has found her friends and colleagues, and, most importantly, her home on the mainland. And it is in this new home that Bella admits, “I can’t imagine having come into adulthood any other way.”