A Transcript Evaluation (How awesome is college?!?)

I went to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I loved it. I continue to love it. I have a Illinois garbage can, an Illinois welcome mat, about 20 hoodies/t-shirts and a degree from a school I truly love.

I met my best friends in the world at Illinois. One of them is a beautiful adventurer who let me visit her mud hut in Mali, lived with me in DC and is letting me help her move to Los Angeles. The other is the most humble brilliant person I know (especially at law, international studies, grammar and trivia) who always finds time between her studies, work and rocking out to send me sweet emails. I am a better person for knowing these two. I'm lucky to have many other amazing friends from Illinois to boot.

I met my husband at Illinois. It wasn't love at first sight, but I was hooked.

I met our friend who performed our wedding. He wore an Elvis-style leisure suit my first Halloween on campus. He wore a seersucker suit to a play with me and BFF Jules. He ran through The Daily Illini newsroom with blue icing smeared on his face quoting Braveheart. Today he's still one of my favorite people - he always makes me laugh and he always makes me think.

I met mayors, Pulitzer Prize winners, cartoonists, racist crazies, state reps, candidates of all sorts, police officers, scholars, bartenders, drunks, churchy folks, the president of CNN, drag queens and Illinois Gov. George Ryan (before he was a crook).

If you look at my college transcript you won't see that. How can that be?

That 'C' in Astronomy 121: The Solar System? Look at the feature stories I wrote for The Daily Illini as a freshman. I woke up at 3 a.m. to ride along in garbage trucks! I loved it.

I didn't rock out at Econ? I can tell you how Champaign-Urbana promotes the drinking culture of Illinois. I can explain the liquor licenses, enforcement patterns and bar practices that all work together to keep bars running and college students paying fines. Between the University and the two cities, it doesn't seem like many people figure this silliness out, but I can. That's better than understanding silly supply and depand charts for sure.

A 'B-' in Political Science 355: Constitution & Civil Liberties (I've got a minor in Poli Sci -- I think this is the only place where I can brag about that!) is hot shit! It's excellent. A 'B-' sounds so terrible, but seriously that wasn't easy potatoes. It was a hardcore lecture class with just two exams all about U.S. Supreme Court decisions. I can tell you at thing or two about the Supreme Court.

I can tell you that a day after 9/11 my (very conservative) Political Science Professor told us: “This is the time to stand up. Enough already. We either have the will or we have no will.” I took three Political Science courses with Ira Carmen. I still consider him a great mind and someone who speaks without candor. And I'm still proud of my non-A grades in his classes because I learned so much. Seeing that people who disagree with me might have an intelligent reason for doing so, that one side isn't right or wrong, that basic ideals dictate how we perceive situations is still important to me. But it's not on my transcript.

That 'A' in Journ 380: Reporting 2?!? That was everything to me. I worked harder than I thought possible. I made connections about housing policies and how those policies affected poor people. I called Professor Leon Dash (who is incredibly intimidating, awesome and really nice when you bother him on a Saturday) when a source for my story asked me for money. That grade looks just like the other 'A's on my transcript but it's NOT like those grades. (Certainly not like my 'A' in Kines 104: Ice Skating!) That grade was a triumph. That 'A' meant the world to me. It still does.

I'll take a little bit of pride in that 'C' in EEE 104: Environmental Biology because I don't think I went to that class more than twice. Seriously. Shameful? Nah. I'm sure I was doing important stuff instead of going to class.

Surely there were moments when I was lazy or drunk or stupid or ridiculous. I completely admit that while college was work (especially for someone who happily worked nearly-full-time outside of classes), it was also a ton of fun.

I kissed boys. I sang karaoke. I ate frozen yogurt for dinner and questionable pizza at 3 a.m. I volunteered. I took adventures. I expanded my mind. I questioned everything.

I learned to state my opinion. I learned to run a meeting. I learned to teach. I learned how to hide a fake ID and avoid police (and then proceed to almost collapse in fear of almost being caught). I learned that weather experts can't predict the weather very accurately past 3 days ahead. I learned that at a certain point a city can send your parking tickets to whoever owns your car, which might be your parents, which is decidedly uncool.

I take all those moments - stupid, smart and otherwise - and feel proud. I see orange and blue and I smile. I send my transcripts along to schools who I want to accept me into nursing programs and hope they see all that's between the lines. There's amazing stuff there.