Final Question from 6

6. You are infamously in love with your Alma Mater. Share some of your favorite things about the U of I and what made it such a wonderful experience for you. If you could go back and relive a handful of days (say between 4 and 8) from your college years, what ones would you pick and why? What do you miss the most? What don’t you miss at all? How has attending the U of I changed you in ways that attending any other school could not?

If you put me in a room with 50 prospective freshman still undecided as to what college to go to, I promise you that I could convince all 50 to go to the University of Illinois. Promise you.

My college experience was something that kids dream of when they begin to get those brochures in the mail junior year of high school. I made friends that will literally last a lifetime, I had professors that inspired me and caused me to search for a greater passion, I joined clubs and organizations that gave me skills I still use today, I went to hundreds of sporting events, I tail-gated, I frequented the bars in PJ pants some days and black pants the next, I sat on the quad and listened to protests, I swam in the fountains, I stayed at school for 3 summers working a job that changed my life, I lived in the dorms, I lived in an apartment and not a day went by that I didn’t say “God am I happy to be here”.

I can’t describe why I love my Alma Mater so much…it is the feeling I get when I go back and see the fall leaves surrounding the actual statue of the Alma Mater and read the inscription “To thy happy children of the future, those of the past send greeting.” It the feeling that there is a common bond of blue and orange across the country and the world and that everyone who has come before me and will come after me will walk through the Union, sit on the Quad, have a beer at Murphy’s and sing “Hail to the Orange…Hail to the Blue”

I think what made the experience so incredible were the people and that common bond. Not only do I love my friends that I had then and the ones that I still have now, but there are those that I just passed by or became acquainted with for a semester through a class or an organization. People changed my life because of the ideas that they had and the things that they did.

Perhaps I could have gotten this at any other college like U of I. My experiences might have been the same at most of the Big 10 schools. But I doubt it. I believe that you go somewhere for a reason and that if you have the opportunity to chose, you can walk onto the campus of a school and know that it is right for you. I knew that and I was correct and that I was a very lucky girl.

I don’t miss it because I love my life now and I have always said that I never want to be the person that says “my best times were 10 years ago”…I want to keep living in my “best times”. But sometimes when the air hits me in the right way I think of the magnolia tree outside of Lincoln Avenue Residence Hall, when I smell a sandalwood candle I think of Brett’s apartment, when I see an Irish Pub I think of Murphy’s, and when I hear the drums beat and the horns rise to belt out Oskee Wow Wow my heart flutters remember the great times I had in college.