“You should go home for that,” a friend once told me as I was packing my things to head to the library for a quick nap. Immediately, I was offended.
“What is home?” I asked. He looked confused, so I asked him again.
“What is home, Jeremy?”
“Home is?” he started thoughtfully. Finally it clicked. “Home is?where the heart is!”
“Exactly,” I answered, and then left to take a nap.
The U is not just a school. Neither is it just a campus with numerous eating facilities and recreational areas. No, the U is something much more than that. The U is a freaking sanctuary.
Here you have a choice. You can be where you want to be and do what you want to do. If your idea of paradise is crammed with diverse people ready to meet you with open arms, you can find it at the U. If you prefer to be invisible to the masses and to be left alone, you can find that here, too.
I tire of hearing about the U’s lack of tradition and the need to get more activities for students. It is not the school’s fault. If someone doesn’t have the gusto or sense to jump into the culture frothing around the U, then that person doesn’t deserve to be a part of any tradition. There are plenty of things that make the U unique-one only has to look around.
The Marriot Library, for example: At nearly any time during the fall or spring, I can walk from one end to the other and find at least two dozen sleeping students. Sure, some of these students may have dozed off by accident (last I heard, there aren’t any actual clubs for narcoleptic library fans), but it is a tradition nonetheless.
The same goes for laughing at people while they chase after TRAX trains, or praying for the day you can watch one of those long-boarders completely take out an off-guard student-these things make the U more than just a campus; they make it the soft and cuddly place it really is.
Not to mention the open invitation to learn. Apart from the little quirks and lovable idiosyncrasies already mentioned, there are the real clubs and the real associations that encourage active learning within a friendly, social atmosphere. For example, did you know that there are 315 listed clubs in 21 different categories on U’s Web page alone? And those are only the officially endorsed clubs! This means that you could literally check into a new club on six of the seven days of the week for an entire year and still have ground left to cover.
No tradition, my foot.
It seems to me that if there is something you want to do, you are pretty much free to give it a try. Chances are there are crowds of other students who have the same interests and who would be more than willing to have you included in their fun. And, if there is not a club out there for you (which I doubt), what is stopping you from forming your own? Like I said, the U is much more than a school: It is freedom of opportunity.
Not a social butterfly? I, like many others, highly recommend the numerous quiet areas and study halls for those oh-so-precious moments of reflection. You don’t have to be surrounded by loud, unfamiliar strangers if you don’t want to be; you can do your own thing. Take a break from the pressures of family or work and just chill. The fact that you’re on a college campus does not require you to jump headfirst into loads of studying.
For these reasons-and many others that you’ll have to find on your own-I am proud to call the U my school. But it is not only that: It is my sanctuary, my tradition, my home and my freedom, and it can be the same for you. Ki-yi!