This weekend was one of my favorites. My family and I went to my Alma mater Penn State. I haven’t been up there since I graduated, and I wanted to show them the school. I was a little emotional about it. This is the school where I learned who I was and my experience there shaped me and how I look at the world.

When I was to choose a school for college, I could have done what 99% of what the rest of the seniors at my high school did: go local. I didn’t want to go to a school in the NYC area. I wanted something different. I also didn’t want to be around the same people I was around high school.

I had a feeling PSU was a school I wanted to go to. So my two years at their Hazleton campus and two at University Park was life changing. Who I am is because of meeting different people from parts of Pa and around the world. I learned empathy and gained a prospective where I get why people think and even vote the way they do. Life is different out there, some better some not better than the city life. I tell everyone to make their kids go somewhere different for school to be better people.

Seeing my daughter eat ice cream at the Penn Stste Creamery, and seeing her face when we drove by the agriculture section made me smile. It was important to me for them to see where I was made me.