"The Life"

"The Life"--Campus Life from UIAA's Student Alumni Ambassadors
Hello Alumni Club members! My name is Nicole Alexander, and I am the Vice President of Homecoming for the Student Alumni Ambassadors. SAA, in their mission to develop programs that promote a positive campus experience for current students and promote alumni-student relations, plans many aspects of the Illinois Homecoming experience from picking the theme to planning every aspect of programs that reach thousands of students and community members. I am incredibly proud to say that this year’s Homecoming was a great success with new programs, record attendance and great weather!

In Champaign-Urbana right now, finals week and cold weather have descended dramatically upon campus. Suddenly, the libraries are the most social locations on campus and open for twenty-four hours a day, the coffee houses have lines out the door and students are decked out in multiple layers to combat the below-freezing temperatures. I fear for my sanity as I try to learn a semester’s worth of material in a matter of days. When walking across the Quad, it’s easy for me to get caught up in a good song on my iPod or just daydream instead of paying attention to the icy conditions of the sidewalks. I’ve already fallen twice and keep myself from bursting out in laughter when I see other students do the same thing.

As first semester ends, I have to face something incredibly unnerving. I am going to graduate college in a matter of months and need to figure out what I am going to do when I enter the adult world. Soon, my friends and I will actually be trusted with real-world responsibility, be working or attending graduate schools across the country and somehow be deemed “adults.”

I can still remember my very first day as a wide-eyed freshman moving into Allen Hall. I was excited to be granted freedom from my parents and high school life and felt energized by all of the new people to meet. We identified each other by our high school, hometown and dorm room address. I made friends in classes, in my dorm and through different activities. Little did I know that in those first few weeks, I would meet some of my best friends who would go on to shape my college experience. Today, I see them applying for all sorts of fascinating opportunities in business, law, science and medicine, going off to interviews and trying to decide where the next phase of their life will begin. Although I remember the times we spent together, I have no idea how the last four years moved so quickly!

Despite the fast-approaching future, my roommates and I have decided to take the time to relish our senior years despite our crazy schedules. We made a pact to be collegiate as possible, meaning we go to every basketball game and football game decked out in an obscene amount of orange and face paint. We try to attend different concerts and plays and take every opportunity to eat free food. We take random trips after midnight, spend lots of time together and ignore our homework until absolutely necessary. Tomorrow we’ll be the responsible graduates armed with a great Illinois education at your work place. For now, we’re just going to be seniors.

My Illinois experience has given me absolutely amazing extracurricular, research and personal opportunities, and I am having a hard time imagining life without everyone I’ve met here. I just spent this past week traveling across the country for medical school interviews. Despite my interest in these schools, I couldn’t wait to come back “home” to Champaign-Urbana where I could spend all day talking about everything and nothing at all with the best people in the world.

With finals week and winter weather descending upon campus, I have one goal for the remainder of the semester: I want to be part of massive snowball fight on the Quad and build an awesome snow man. Despite all the pressures of the future coming at me, I’m still in college and have the right to be a little kid again.