Western Michigan University...and Why You Should Go There

The following is my contribution the future/prospective students of my beloved alma mater, Western Michigan University.

Students, welcome to a place full of diversity. Welcome to a smaller city that will know your name. Prepare to be surrounded by some flagpoles, fraternity houses, promising kiss-ups and drunk hipster wannabes. Prepare yourself for a Midwestern way of preparing for the real world, which is a lot like life just before the "real world." They are both not as cool as elementary school.

I studied Journalism at Western, and I can say one thing: I was taught what I needed to know. Most of the people that go to this highly-populated (well, enrollment did decline in recent years, but that president has since been fired. The wretch!) public university are in for a good time. A lot of the international people inspire the rest of us to hit the books, and sometimes we actually did. But the good time kind of meant more than boozing, debauchery and immoral behavior. We were a large family. There is an honors college, which I think I went into one time. There is a place called the Bernhard Center, where there were some restaurant choices, a bank, a computer lab, and at one time a bowling alley. What ever happened to the bowling?

Now, some people call it Wastern as opposed to Western. About that I would like to say, if you are a partier, you will be very pleased. At Western, it didn't feel wrong. It wasn't wrong. It was part of being a true Western student. You accept the fact that class is more fun hungover. For every party animal, there are 10 model students. I would have liked to be like them, but we are all different. We are no better than each other, or worse. We just are.

The dorms are not that nice, but I lived in the ones that had the community bathrooms, so what do I know? I never said I was a role model. There are clubs, local watering holes, kids with lots of facial hair that smell of patchouli and have friendly smiles. There is a cute downtown area, a 24-hour video rental place with ice cream, coffee and video games, and if you play your cards right, you get lucky, because some of the parking garage attendants sleep on the job. My favorite classes were Philosophy, Literary Interpretation, Journalism Research, Media Criticism, Wall Climbing, Script Writing, Aerobics and Mythology. The professors, for the most part, were an amusing and articulate bunch. If I can't think of a terrible one, that's a good thing, right?

Anyway, if you decide to go to Western, there are some things you need to know. Parking passes are horrendously expensive. They have a really nice recreation center/gym, and there is a great college radio station, WIDR 89.1. I can say that I would have liked to see the school's newspaper, the Western Herald, be a little more appealing and not so formulaic, but that might be because the articles that I wrote for it were not so great. Hey, you live and you learn. But to sum it up, if you want to do something here, you can. It feels available to you. They offer a lot of great opportunities, and if you apply to the experience the old saying "You get out of it what you put into it," it makes a lot of sense. If you want a larger school, but don't feel like a total academic and like to think of yourself as diverse, open-minded and educated, this place is for you!