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Legacies
By Julia S. | April 18, 2012
Sometime during my senior year, while watching Ohio State YouTube videos and waiting for my freshman year at college to come, I stumbled upon some clips of students sharing their Ohio State family legacies. I found these videos to be really keen. (Okay, so using the word keen to mean neat! or fascinating! is totally outdated… by about 80 years. But let’s bring it back, people!)
I remember being really entranced by the idea of having an Ohio State legacy. Personally, I find going to OSU an awesome enough experience as it is, but the added bonus of a parental tie is cool. So these videos made me a little wistful, in addition to being keen. After all, my parents were not Ohio Staters. Although they were raised in Ohio, they went to Kent State. Despite not being a legacy, however, I’m still content with my Ohio State story.
Traditional legacies aside, everyone that comes to The Ohio State University is, of course, still creating their own unique story. Considering the fact that we’re one of the largest universities in the country, we have pretty much every story imaginable here, too, which is exciting. Transfer students, military students, athletes, students from all 50 states, nearly 5,000 international students, people who decided to come here on a whim, people who have been planning to come here since age 5, etc., etc., etc… we have it all.
I will say though, that although I’m not technically a legacy, two of my aunts did go here, and my cousin Joey is a current 4th year (and president of Musician’s Collective here at Ohio State, if you’re interested). So even though I hail from Texas, I do have some KEEN OSU family stories:
- As you may or may not know, there is a cool license plate-filled picture of Ohio in the student Union next to Station 88, our OSU merchandise store. What’s neat about this art is that there is a license plate fragment for every county in Ohio. Ohio State got the word out that they were going to create this piece of art, and told alumni that they were free to send in their old Ohio plates for the artwork. My aunt and uncle sent in their license plate, and it ended up getting used in the piece, for Franklin County, no less– the county Columbus/OSU is in!
- Also, here is a really heartwarming story my Aunt Mickey told me about her days at OSU while I was at Orientation this past summer.
We were in Campbell Hall, in one of the lecture rooms, waiting for a session to start. “It’s so weird being in here!” Aunt Mickey commented. “This was the exact lecture hall of my nutrition class when I came to Ohio State. One time, the professor was telling people that they needed to take the class seriously and not treat it like an elective, since for many of them, it was a requirement for their majors.” Feeling pretty confident with the progress she was making in her own major, my aunt stood up and said, “It’s an elective for me!” In response to this, the professor said, “Well, then you can elective your way right out of this classroom.” After that, Aunt Mickey obediently shut up and took her seat.
So maybe heartwarming isn’t exactly the right word. But hey– this is my legacy!
I guess the moral of the story is: Find a way, sometime during your 4-ish years here, to leave your mark on Ohio State. I want to be able to come back one day and know, at least in some small way, that I’ve created some sort of legacy here. Probably not in any groundbreaking, earth shattering way. Just something that says, Julia Simpson was here, and she made the most of her time at THE Ohio State University.
~~~
Rude Awakening: With warmer weather comes Oval Beach, in which students come to the grassy Oval to relax, play games, study, etc. Oval Beach is great and all, but watch out! Twice already I’ve nearly been decapitated by a flying Frisbee on my way to class.
Pleasant Surprise: I checked out books for the very first time this weekend from Thompson Library. (If you don’t know, Thompson is our colossal, gorgeous main library on campus). What did I check out? The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Mere Christianity, both by C.S. Lewis. So I didn’t check out anything for academic purposes… but! I think it still counts.
In firm friendship,
Julia Rose S.
Topics: Author, Julia S., Personal, School Spirit, Why Ohio State? | 1 Comment »
April 21st, 2012 at 9:06 pm
Useful info. Lucky me I found your site accidentally, and I’m surprised why this accident did not took place earlier! I bookmarked it.