{"id":13286,"date":"2025-10-07T08:15:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-07T13:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/becomeatexan\/?p=13286"},"modified":"2025-09-23T10:51:42","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T15:51:42","slug":"the-place-to-be-why-sending-our-son-1500-miles-away-was-the-only-correct-answer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/becomeatexan\/the-place-to-be-why-sending-our-son-1500-miles-away-was-the-only-correct-answer\/","title":{"rendered":"The Place To Be: Why Sending Our Son 1,500 Miles Away Was The Only Correct Answer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Felicia<\/figure>
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\u201cEver since learning about Tarleton, Harry knew it was the place for him. Attending orientation was such an emotional event for me because it was the realization that this was a great decision.\u201d <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

–<\/strong> Tarleton State Parent, Felicia Fisher <\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Our son\u2019s journey from a rural farming community in Pennsylvania to Tarleton State this Fall was influenced by his sister\u2019s desire to escape our bleak winters and attend college in Texas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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 As the youngest of our three, he spent years listening to his sisters\u2019 college journeys so when it came time for him to research schools, he knew exactly what did and did not interest him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

 As the 9th<\/sup> generation of the family to continually farm our property, he knew he wanted to pursue a career in agriculture. Tarleton initially came on his radar after talking to his sister\u2019s friend about how he would love to go to college in Texas as well but thought A&M was too large for him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"The<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The friend, a Texas native, suggested Tarleton State and, as they say, the rest is history. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

While people from Pennsylvania think Penn State as the epicenter of the universe, some going as far as to chastise his decision to leave Pennsylvania, the national ranking of Tarleton\u2019s agriculture program is significantly higher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0He liked the fact that there\u2019s a hands-on opportunity of working on a dairy farm since the only thing we farm is \u201cboring produce\u201d and that the Agriculture Services and Development major afforded him a chance to take classes in different areas of agriculture whereas most other schools have a rigid, limited track.\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Tarleton State College of Agriculture and Natural Resources<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n

The size of the campus and the student body was appealing as was the chance to attend rodeo events and possibly participate in an exchange program. While he decided not to play football after high school, he liked that the school is a D1 program with an enthusiastic student body cheering on their classmates.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

As parents, we like the fact that the cost of Tarleton State (even taking into consideration the added cost of travel), is still significantly less expensive than what it would cost to send him to a school in our home state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0Having a child 1,500 miles away is admittedly not without challenges.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Besides becoming a part-time travel agent comparing school schedules with flight schedules, there\u2019s the added logistics of renting storage units over the summer months and navigating vehicle shipping. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

For our son, the trade-off for enjoying everything Tarleton has to offer is that, on the occasions when he\u2019s feeling under the weather or a bit homesick, he can\u2019t easily travel home. It was a trade-off which he was more than willing to make. Given the reports we\u2019ve received thus far about his classes, classmates and the events he\u2019s been attending, he\u2019s certainly not homesick.\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

In the interim, we\u2019ve become unofficial ambassadors of Tarleton State University with our giant purple flag flying from our porch, our lawn sign received from Dr. Hurley at move-in, our vehicle stickers and, most importantly, telling everyone and anyone with a child interested in pursuing an education in agriculture in particular that Stephenville, Texas is the place to be.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Ready to make Tarleton State your new home away from home? Visit https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/becomeatexan\/<\/a> for more information about how to become an official Tarleton State Texan. BLEED PURPLE.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cEver since learning about Tarleton, Harry knew it was the place for him. Attending orientation was such an emotional event for me because it was the realization that this was …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":687,"featured_media":13296,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","wds_primary_category":47,"footnotes":""},"categories":[204,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-out-of-state-students","category-parents"],"acf":[],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/becomeatexan\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/36\/2025\/10\/B.Smith-Blog-Feature-Photos.png","author_info":{"display_name":"Blake Smith","author_link":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/becomeatexan\/author\/bsmith1\/"},"author_meta":{"display_name":"Blake Smith","author_link":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/becomeatexan\/author\/bsmith1\/"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/becomeatexan\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/36\/2025\/10\/B.Smith-Blog-Feature-Photos.png","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["Out-of-State Students<\/a>","Parents<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Out-of-State Students<\/span>","Parents<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":0,"relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 6 months ago","modified":"Updated 7 months ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on October 7, 2025","modified":"Updated on September 23, 2025"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on October 7, 2025 8:15 am","modified":"Updated on September 23, 2025 10:51 am"},"featured_img_caption":"","series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/becomeatexan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/becomeatexan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/becomeatexan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/becomeatexan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/687"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/becomeatexan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13286"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/becomeatexan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13294,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/becomeatexan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13286\/revisions\/13294"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/becomeatexan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/becomeatexan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/becomeatexan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/becomeatexan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}