If there is one event almost every University student can recall from those early days as a wide-eyed, lanyard-wearing freshman, it’s Quad Day. 

Oh yes, this is the part where I go ahead and make myself sound old and nostalgic: I remember it like it was yesterday. 

The crisscrossed sidewalks were bursting with color and energy, and I was in awe at the bustle of so many students. I remember being excited about the boundless opportunities as I imagined myself traveling to a foreign country to provide medical aid (even though I knew nothing about medicine), speaking fluent Mandarin Chinese (hey, it could have happened), or designing some award-winning gadget (maybe even Calculus deserved a second chance?). If you were anything like me, you can recollect walking casually as if you weren’t making sure every few steps that you hadn’t lost your new best friends — aka people you met like five minutes ago in your dorm. 

But most of all, you were filled with that indescribable buzz of endless possibility. After all, your naive freshman self thought the next four years were plenty of that crazy thing seniors now wish they had more of: time.

But what I have realized as I enter my fourth year is that like any good buzz, this one has also gradually subsided — or maybe it has not subsided, just changed. We found our specific interests, our group of friends, and maybe even a career path (or so we’ve promised our parents). In short, we have become focused, which is not a bad thing. It just leaves little chance for us to look around and appreciate the incredible things happening all across Champaign-Urbana. We forget how proud we should be to be a part of it. So before you decide to skip out on Quad Day in favor of your air-conditioned apartment and a six-pack, let’s do that thing that you dread during your Friday morning 9 a.m. discussion — let’s reflect.

Do you know how amazing it is that our University has over 1,000 registered student organizations? That would be the equivalent of almost every student in my high school running his or her own organization. Even if you just stop by Quad Day to see some of the more, shall we way, unique ones, I promise you will end up finding yet another way to be proud to be an Illini.

Think back: Who went with you to Quad Day your freshman year? Remember when you all promised each other you wouldn’t lose touch? What are those friends doing now? Unless some major blowout has caused a giant rift in your relationship, arrange a get-together.  It is so easy to stick with your roommates or peers in a student organization, but the people you met that first year were your lifesavers when you think about it. I wouldn’t have survived trying to navigate the University’s uncharted waters without knowing my friends were there to make that tiny box we called a dorm room my home.

Ask yourself: Have you ever been one to turn down free stuff? Do you have enough plastic cups, pens, note pads, key chains, T-shirts, drawstring backpacks, Frisbees, magnets or chip clips to make it through the year? Yes, I have an absolutely ridiculous amount of T-shirts, but I definitely plan on stopping by for some other Quad Day freebies to stock my new apartment.

Pull out your bucket list and see what you have left to do. Don’t have one? Make one for your senior year. Hate to break it to you, but senior year might be a little bit too late to be on the executive board for three different organizations. But if you have always wanted to join October Lovers, go skydiving or play an intramural sport, there is nothing wrong with picking that up as a senior. Join something fun so that you can cross something besides “graduate college” off of your bucket list this year.

Ask yourself, is there really anything better to do on a Sunday afternoon when classes have not even started yet?  Give it a half-hour, 15-minutes or even just a five-minute walk-through, because the next chance you will have to do so will be as alumni. Now that is a scary thought.

Maggie is a senior in LAS. She can be reached at [email protected].