THIS IS THE LAST COLUMN EVER — well, at least for me at the Daily Vidette. I wish there was a way I could make this the most epic thing you have ever read, complete with dancing bears, fireworks, and Chuck Norris bursting through the page on a unicorn. But instead of aiming for epic, I think I will aim to be memorable (but not in the first Fool’s Fest kind of way).

Now that my undergrad is pretty much over, everyone keeps asking what I’m going to do when I get to the “real world.” Funny thing is the past four years have felt pretty real to me. All of the papers, exams, random dining jobs, and internships I have had felt pretty legit, so what’s supposed to happen after May 12? Honestly, I have no clue. What I do know is that being a student at ISU has been the best time of my life.

I can fill you up on all of the graduation speech clichés, but I’ll skip the Vitamin C slow song and go right into why Illinois State University is so kick ass. And it’s not because we are the first public university in Illinois, that our Quad is a tree atrium, that we have a state-of-the-art rec center, and not even that it has a completely student-run newspaper.

It’s the fact that this university is pretty much like a “choose your own adventure” book. No matter where you start out when you get to ISU, you’ll never have to be bored or alone. We have so much going on all the time and so many groups of people that are accepting of every hobby and lifestyle. Want to juggle pickles while watching reruns of “Golden Girls”? Guarantee you aren’t the only one. And I think that is why I loved being here so much, even if we didn’t really care about learning in our classrooms 100 percent of the time — the people here care about learning about each other.

For everyone who has picked up the Daily Vidette and read one of my articles, commented online, (or drawn a sweet mustache over my not-so-great picture up here), I am incredibly thankful for all of the support.

The staff here is so hard working (not even being nice — I’m pretty sure some of them have taken up residence at the office) and so open to letting columnists write literally anything on their minds. My own have ranged from how to survive in a jungle, social networking, politics, and of course, on a very special Tuesday, porn.

In the four years I’ve attended ISU, working for the newspaper has been one of the most important things I have done for myself. You know how if you’re in the paper, it’s usually pretty special and your parents, or you, cut it out for safe keeping? Well, even though I was guaranteed to show up in the Daily Vidette every Tuesday, the special feeling doesn’t wear off. It only intensifies. I have stacks of the newspaper that would make any hoarder envious and even more notebooks chock-full of interviews from my time as a reporter.

The memories I’ve made working here and all of the different people I have met through articles speaks volumes about the type of people who belong to ISU. There is literally something for every type of person here. No matter who you are, your time at ISU is going to be incredible. I know mine was. So thanks to everyone I have met and worked with and to you, for reading this all the way through. Cue Chuck Norris.

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