There comes a time when people no longer can dodge the inevitability of leaving and saying goodbye. Some students realized this the first day of the semester, others during the Tiger Band’s rendition of Pregame at their last football game in the student section.
I am just realizing it now, as I write my last column.
I’ve spent the past four-and-a-half years in the Reveille’s Hodges Hall basement newsroom, parked in front of a temperamental (and sometimes talking) Macintosh computer, many times until the wee hours of the morning.
I’ve survived the great Reveille flood of 2000, the Reveille power outages of both 2000 and 2003 and numerous newsroom all-nighters. Sometimes it felt like I covered college more than I actually attended it. (My professors probably would agree.)
Seeing as it is my goodbye column, my final thoughts, my last hurrah, I feel compelled to share my short list of things students must do before moving out from under LSU’s oaks and arches. Here goes:
To truly say you’ve experienced LSU, you must witness the campus’ silent beauty late at night, when the cars are gone and the students have long since left for the night.
Though the campus seems so alive during the bustling daytime hours, it is serene and majestic when the sun sets past the Spanish moss- laden trees and clay-tiled rooftops.
Learning the words to LSU’s alma mater should be a prerequisite to graduation. (And no, “Hey Fighting Tigers” is NOT the alma mater.) On a side note, despite what happens at football games, the alma mater has TWO verses and not one.
Attending an away football game should be high on everyone’s list of priorities. Besides the obvious implications of school spirit, having a laundry list of stories about “That time I ‘took one for the team’ when we were in Knoxville” will give you something to talk about years from now when mortgages and 401K plans dominate your life. (Just an idea — other schools’ students don’t like it when you drive around their campus blaring the fight song. So you should definitely do it.)
Students also should attend at least one LSU-sponsored non-athletic event. That sounds lame, but events like the Chancellor’s Late Night Pancake Breakfast are both fun and free.
Incidentally, my years of sounding off about campus happenings and controversies caught up with me at last night’s pancake breakfast, when Chancellor Emmert wrangled the rough draft of this column from my hands to read and critique it, embarrassing me into silence. (And that’s tough to do.)
In exchange for a glowing review, I promised not to mention his salary increase in this column. (Does that count, Mark?)
Back on topic — most importantly, you should define your LSU experience in your own way. Organizations, jobs, teams and social circles shrink LSU from 30,000 students to a manageable size. Years from now, we’ll hardly remember those 300-people biology classes or how to calculate the GDP deflator (unless you’re economics majors, in which case I feel for you).
It will be the people — your classmates, co-workers, professors and friends — who will leave their memories etched in your heart and mind. Because the people you experience LSU with can make or break your time here, you should surround yourself with loyal friends, hard-working individuals and fun-loving cohorts. Associate with people who can challenge you — we’re in college, which is meant to be a time for horizon expanding discussions. Everyone should have a nemesis with whom he or she can debate. Otherwise, you’re just not living.
(If you hate mushy, teary-eyed personal moments, just put this column down now. I’m about to sound like a Hallmark card.)
I have found all of these people and more in my humble Hodges Hall home away from home, where I’ve been privileged to work with some of the most dedicated students on campus, people who are talented at both work and play.
Anyone would be lucky to even have a few of these people as friends. For the past four and a half years, I’ve been privileged to have them as my loud, stressed, easily excited, opinionated, but always honest, LSU family.
Later kids, it’s been fun.