How many times have you heard someone say: “If I had the opportunity to do it again, I would change the way I did it the first time?”

I am lucky enough to be offered that chance. But packing up your life and relocating to another country is always a gamble. Add to that the excitement of starting school again, and your odds for a smooth transition sky rocket.

This is not my first attempt at university. In 2001, fresh out of high school at the tender age of 17, I headed off to university in a small Ontario town.

Everyone around me had faith in my ability to succeed. I was excited to be embarking on a new chapter of my life.

I think that initial eagerness faded when my parents left me on the day I moved into my dorm.

Looking back, there were so many reasons why I wasn’t ready to have left Bermuda.

Sure, there were the textbook reasons — the freedom was too much for me too fast, the schoolwork was too intense, I was completely unprepared for the freezing temperatures that waited.

It was being two years younger than everyone else in my freshman class.

It was leaving behind a boyfriend and refusing to hang out with my friends because he was too jealous and overbearing to let me enjoy this new period in my life.

It was a need for my parents to be in the next room to tell me to do my homework and that everything is going to be OK.

I found myself spending more time poking around on the Internet, chatting with friends and watching TV than I was spending time on my school work — the reason I was there.

Over the two and a half years I spent at university, I changed my course of study three times (first drama, then psychology, then criminal justice).

It wasn’t that the course content wasn’t interesting, it was more that I couldn’t bring myself to offer them the attention they needed.

My grades steadily declined until one day in December, 2003, I called my mother in tears and we decided the best course of action would be for me to come home.

Up until that point we’d always believed the homesickness would wear off as I became settled.

Obviously we were wrong, and I returned home hoping to find myself.

I felt like a failure and that I had let everyone down.

There’s a lot of pressure for young Bermudians to succeed. The world seems to be on our shoulders because the future of the Island is in our hands.

I promised myself and my family I would go back to school and earn a degree.

I don’t think my parents believed me but I knew from experience that no matter who you know or how hard you work, in this day and age, you’ll never be paid what your worth unless you have the degrees and certification to back it up.

It took me three years to figure out what I wanted to do with my life.

It was a time of exploration, mistakes, challenges, a time of change.

I finally got out of the bad relationship (much to the delight of my family and friends), found a steady job, was saving money, and realised my calling — journalism.

When you go to your job every day and you’re happy to be there, happy to be doing what you’re doing, you know you’re in the right line of work. When I finally got that feeling, I knew I needed to take my career to the next level and school was the obvious choice.

I’m a little older and a little wiser now than I was in 2001.

Now I am a mature student and I’ve got about four years on my class mates.

Most of my peers, the people I graduated high school with, have finished their schooling and are starting their professional lives.

The pressure to be like everyone else is suffocating sometimes.

Shouldn’t I be engaged by now, with a mortgage, a car and slowly climbing the ladder to success?

There have been several occasions where I’ve sat back while the teacher is lecturing, taken a look at the kids sitting around me and wondering why I am where I am.

Sure, I’m in the position to be offering them advice on their first year — no one expects you to get through your first semester with a pristine GPA. It’s a time for exploration.

But I’m past that now. I think this time the whole “school” thing is going to stick.

The one thing I did differently was know myself and my limits, and when I was ready to take that challenge.

Sure, life is short, but it’s better to make an informed decision than to rush headlong into a situation that you are completely unprepared for.

Although sometimes it takes big mistakes to learn just that.