So long, Illinois College!
This will be the last Lettidor that I will write for The Rambler. I will be graduating at the end of this semester after three and a half amazing years at IC, a place where I’ve not only received a wonderful education, but where I’ve made life-long friends and unforgettable memories. As I finish up my final few weeks here, I will relish my time on campus before moving out into the real world. It’s a scary thought to be sure, but it’s a relief to know that I won’t be going it alone.
On the first day of classes my first year, I signed up to join The Rambler simply because one of the few returning students that I knew on campus was involved in the organization. I joined because I didn’t know anyone and I wanted to make friends. And that I did. The Rambler has always consisted of both loud, obnoxious students and the more quiet, freelance-type writers. Yet somehow, perhaps through the love of writing and power of information and ideas, we’ve all become friends.
The Rambler has a way of bringing people together. I met the love of my life through this organization. She was a writer before becoming my Features Editor, and then my Editor-in-Chief before graduating early. Sound familiar? My life has followed that very same trajectory and now we find ourselves happily engaged. I proposed over the summer, right outside the door of the office in which we first met and fell in love.
Maybe it’s the magic in our cramped Memorial Hall office. Maybe it’s the thrill of seeing a random student crack open a new issue in Cummings or the pride of watching a professor carry one into their office. I’m not sure what it is, but this organization and newspaper is certainly something special.
My time at Illinois College has been nothing short of an adventure. From drinking ungodly amounts of caffeine for finals my first year, to having a minor crisis when I switched majors my sophomore year, to spending way too much time in meetings and committees my junior year, to writing over one hundred pages for my senior thesis project, it has been one hell of a ride.
Throughout my time here, I have picked up many useful skills, such as waiting until the night before a paper is due before cranking out an A-worthy essay or contributing to a class discussion without having read a single word of the reading.
I learned that you can talk about anything you want in class, no matter how irrelevant, so long as you label the experience as a ‘Liberal Arts Moment.” I found out that although the alcohol policy is too harsh, the food is pretty bad, and the textbook policy sucks, attending this school was perhaps the single greatest decision that I’ve ever made.
While I may not remember what role Athena played in The Iliad, what amino acids do, or literally anything from stats class, what I will remember is how much I loved it here. I’ll remember staying up way too late with my friends and drinking way too much Arnold Palmer. I’ll remember traveling to Colorado with the Cross Country team and writing the constitutions of three organizations. I’ll remember playing intramural sports and falling in love with my fiancée. None of these life-long friends and unforgettable memories could have been possible without the college that we all know and love. I’m thankful for all the opportunities and experiences that IC has provided me over the years. It wasn’t perfect, but it was damn close.
While I’m not sure what the future holds, I’m excited to see what lies ahead. While my time at Illinois College has been wonderful, I eagerly look forward to the future. Thanks for the good times, friends, and education, IC. I’ll never forget it.
For the last time,
Ramble On.
Cheers,
Dan Lewis
Editor in Chief
THE RAMBLER 