Campus Corner: Feelings of freedom abuzz on UT campus
10/6/2010The Blade features periodic columns from area college students as part of our Campus Corner feature. Daniel Roman is a senior at the University of Toledo.
As citizens we enjoy many freedoms, including those involving speech and religion, but college students experience their own brand of liberation.
For freshmen, leaving their parents' homes to set up their own digs is truly one of the most liberating experiences. For the first time you are free, and the elation is universal. From Kyoto to Toledo, it is understood that whether it's your freshman year at college or you're moving into your own apartment, the ability to explore, experience, and enjoy whatever you want is finally realized.
This new freedom creates a buzz and a culture that is uniquely collegiate. With a new fall semester at the University of Toledo and students settled back in on campus, I'm happy to say that the buzz is back.
The doors to Carlson Library get more action as undergrads make it a necessary destination. The Glass Bowl gates welcome new Rockets to the excitement and reignite alums' undergrad bravado.
But as the freshmen (and we can't forget the parents) who dragged all of their swag into Parks Tower are initiated into freedom, another singular step is just in reach for others.
In the spring, UT seniors will walk across a stage, shake the hand of the dean and receive their diplomas. This kind of freedom, while parallel to emotions they felt freshman year, is different. For many students, graduation marks
their official entry into the
world of work. A degree is the summation of all the long, hard hours spent plugging away at course
material. It is a key that unlocks new doors. Graduates are now free to take the passion discovered in college and turn it into a career.
A recent graduate of UT remarked on the ways he has experienced these various levels of independence. He mentioned the steps off getting his license, landing his first job, moving out of his parents' home, and finally the freedom he felt at graduation. He said that nothing felt as free as walking across the stage to get his diploma. He recalled his elation when fall semester of his senior year began. To be so close to the end of college can be compared to be the excitement of being at the starting line of life.
From freshmen to seniors, with the start of the fall semester already under way, the same buzz around campus has returned.
Freedom is back at The University of Toledo.