When I start to reflect on my four short years at DePauw, it is difficult to know where to begin. Looking back, I see nothing but a blur. Someone please tell me again how we are exactly two weeks away from graduation and I am this old? Didn't I just move into Hogate?
Speaking of freshman year, it took me awhile to adjust to DePauw, and I'm not sure that I fully fell in love until the spring of my sophomore year. You can't deny that DePauw is indeed a special place in a number of ways. The isolating floor plan of Hogate was hard to navigate and I was in awe of all the friends that my BR and Lucy acquaintances had. The then-distance to Starbucks was nearly enough to make me cry. The lack of non-greek activities was overwhelming, and my aversion to fraternities through the roof - it just wasn't my scene. Even so, I skeptically joined the Greek system knowing that I wasn't the typical "sorority girl."
Somewhere along the line though, things changed. I accepted the fact that my flip-flops always have, and always will, stick to the floor at fraternities. I declared my major and had a rough path paved for myself. I embraced DePauw and made it my home.
Fast forward to senior year, and I can't picture myself a student anywhere else. DePauw has been my home for four years and it will always hold a special place in my heart for a multitude of reasons.
The professors I've encountered at DePauw have been both fabulous teachers and friends. From eating pizza in my professors' living rooms to going on day-long shopping excursions with my advisor to attending a four-day professional conference with a professor, I've truly had an academic experience that is unprecedented and something I'm certainly convinced doesn't happen everywhere. I am not sure how it is even possible for a small university in the middle of rural Indiana to employ a faculty that is as diverse, challenging, loving and dedicated as DePauw's.
The friends I've made and continue to make at DePauw are the best. They are the people who will be a part of my life, every step of the way. The ones who will come pick me up from Julian after class when it's raining and I'm too much of a weeny to walk back to my house. The friends who will listen to me practice my seminar presentation and then attend the very same presentation a couple hours later.
The experience I've had these four years is just as Bess Evans described it in her keynote address at the academic awards convocation: "uniquely DePauw."
Where else on this earth is a boulder run an acceptable consequence for losing a game or a bet? What other school has flower-ins or GCBs? What other school can turn its name into a multitude of words (DePauwsome, DePlague, DePauwty)?
These are just a few of the things that are "uniquely DePauw," but perhaps the thing that is most uniquely DePauw is the feeling you get walking around this campus on a sunny day, Easy College beckoning over the fully blooming tulips and adirondack chairs scattered around. It isn't something that can be articulated, words surely don't do it justice.
It is just DePauw. The many familiar and smiling faces you inevitably see on a walk across campus, the classes being help on East College lawn, the amazingly crafted sculptures scattered about campus or the sound of a campus bike bell as someone happily rides it.
This is the feeling that I will be basking in for the next couple of weeks before I walk across that stage, flip my tassel and throw my cap. Until then, you can find me on the Adirondack chairs on East College lawn, soaking it all in.
- Burke is a senior from Nashville, Ind. majoring in education