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Giving
back to TCU starts with appreciating a quality education “Give back to TCU.” It’s the public relations phrase that has been thrown at me more than anything I know in these past four years. I used to say it was TCU that should give back to me with all the parking tickets, tuition increases, over-priced textbooks and shamefully high meal plan costs shoved down my throat without prior consent. However, the end of one’s senior year is a time for reflection — a kind of healing — that bandages old wounds and sprinkles optimism across TCU grudges. For the first time since I began questioning my freshman year’s catch phrase “It’s all about you,” I weighed the costs and benefits of my experience at this university. After an official cost analysis, I can say with all truthfulness, TCU has come out on top of things. The quality of education provided at TCU is probably the item of which most students, including myself, take the most advantage. We reluctantly drag ourselves out of our beds as late as possible, grab coffee for our morning headaches and settle into our desks everyday for four years. The monotony of it all can quickly blind students to the importance and significance of all those 8 a.m. and 7 p.m. classes that we only took because there were no other options. The truth of it all is that the work pays off in the end if you are studying something you love and take advantage of all the opportunities this place has to offer. I can’t begin to express how grateful I am to those mathematics professors who had confidence in me when my self-assurance was approaching zero. How can I ever thank my journalism professors enough who made the same corrections in my articles over and over without cutting my hands off in the process? Without sounding too outlandishly cheesy, let me say that the education I have received at TCU in these past four years has been absolutely priceless. However, the majority of what I learned did not come from a textbook or sitting in a classroom — it came from getting to know my professors, classmates and staff members on a level that is required when receiving a quality education. When I think about it, what I have to give back to TCU is all those hours I spent getting help from the professors who skipped lunch so that I could ace the upcoming exam. I owe everything to the teachers who talked about my life and future career with all the confidence needed to get me motivated to graduate. Money can’t compensate for all the times I spent joking around and goofing off with the professors who didn’t see me on any level but their own. I owe TCU more than I can ever repay, and so I decided the only way to clear my debt to all those who touched my life while at this university is by saying two simple words: Thank you. Thank
you to everybody who made sure all the graduates of 2002 had four
fabulous years at a university about which we can all proudly speak. Above all, thank you, TCU, for the best four years of my life. Without the good and bad times I experienced at this university, my future would not hold the promise it does today. Emily Ward is a senior mathematics and news editorial major from Springtown. She can be contacted at (e.e.ward@student.tcu.edu). |
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TCU Daily Skiff © 2002 |
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