THE UNIVERSITY BARY KANSAN
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 5, 2006
HOMECOMING
9C
Seniors look back, freshmen wonder what's ahead Days on Mount Oread marked with memories of shared experiences, hope for more to come
BY HALEY JONES
As Homecoming week arrives, the festivities and memories evoke bittersweet feelings in KU seniors. Realizing this is their last Homecoming as students at the University, some pause to reflect on their experience as college students.
LOOKING BACK
"A lot of the relationships I've formed here have really made me grow as a person," Anthony Hildebrand, Lubbock, Texas senior, said.
Though each senior has a different set of experiences, their separate memories will not soon be forgotten.
"When we beat K-State two years ago at the Homecoming football game, it was the best night of my life," Nina Mosallaei, Overland Park senior, said.
Kara Rexwinkler, Iola senior, loves the sense of unity at sporting events.
Others look back on international ventures that have led them to new heights.
"Studying abroad in Italy was a huge learning experience," Sarah Smith, Overland Park senior, said. "It was definitely life changing. It made me realize I can handle pretty much anything. With that experience behind me, I'm not worried about failing after college."
Smith, among many others, has grown to love the University and the home it has become for her.
Grant Snider/KANSAN
"As a freshman, you come in and you don't know your place exactly," she said. "But then, after you've been here a while, you feel more comfortable. It starts to feel like home."
Many seniors have more than just fond memories to think about. There is also the uncertainty of entering into the work world.
"I don't really want to leave," Mosallaei said. "I'm prepared academically and professionally, but other than that, I'd rather stay here and hang out with my friends."
The reality of their long-awaited graduation is beginning to hit
seniors.
"I think I'm realizing that I'm really going to graduate," John Grube, Basehor senior, said. "I'm able to see the diploma in the distance."
Kayla Mustain, Spring Hill senior, can't wait to get started in the career she has been preparing for.
"It will be sad leaving, but I'm also really excited to graduate and move on to a new part of my life," she said.
Mustain also looks forward to being promoted to a KU alumnus.
"I will be really, really proud that I went to KU," she said. "It will be cool to come back and go to games. I love KU. The experience has been great."
LOOKING FORWARD
With almost two months under their belts, many freshmen are excited for the road ahead.
"I just want to get out in four years and have a degree that's respected and be able to get into a good graduate school," Paul Colianni, Burr Ridge, Illi. freshman, said.
Patina Ammerman, Flower Mound, Texas freshman, has high expectations for the coming year.
"I hope to make new friends and be a good influence to those around me while having a positive attitude," she said. "As a student, I want to learn about things that I didn't know before."
Many freshmen are excited to participate in the legendary KU traditions.
"I'm excited for basketball games because it seems like that's when the school comes together and goes crazy for KU," Colianni said.
Kate Remley, Concordia freshman, is among many who look forward to visiting a foreign country. She wants to study abroad in Italy.
"I'm taking Italian right now and I've heard how beautiful it is," she said about Italy. "I'd like to see it for myself."
"I want to go skydiving for the thrill of it," Colianni said. "I wanted to do it after I graduated high school but never got to, so I want to do it now."
Others want to try their hand at something exhilarating.
Ammerman will be satisfied
with a less electrifying experience.
"Sledding down the hill, that sounds like fun," she said.
Amelia Bray, Shawnee Mission freshman, hopes to get involved in KU athletics.
"I want to try the rowing team," she said. "I've been on a paddleboat. That's as close to the water as I get. So I think it'd be fun to do something completely out there."
Although there are the countless opportunities for freshmen to succeed, there are equally as many distractions. Colianni hopes to find a happy medium in which his academics and social life can coexist.
"I'm worried about getting too caught up in having fun and partying and not getting enough
work done," he said.
Some freshmen also look forward to growing and maturing as individuals and students.
"I would like to become a more mature and rational person while I'm here at KU." Bray said. "I'd like to develop my study skills so that I'm well prepared for medical school and the life ahead that is spanning out before me."
With all of that surrounding freshmen in their first year of college, what are they most afraid of?
"Honestly? Failing out of college," Remley said.
Kansan correspondent Haley Ka Jones can be contacted at editor@kansan.com.
Edited by Erick R. Schmidt
Traditions, experience passed on through generations
BY CAITLIN THORNBRUGH
The University of Kansas is a part of many families who are passing down the tradition from one Jayhawk generation to the next.
The traditions started 140 years ago, and the first graduates left the University in 1873. While many things have changed, families are still coming together as lavhaws.
Leawood freshman Allison Craddick is a product of the Jayhawk tradition. Coming from two parents with KU diplomas, she was a Jayhawk long before her first day of class.
"I first felt like a Jayhawk when I was 8," she said. "My parents brought me to the basketball and football games. I loved seeing the band, the dance team and the excitement the Jayhawks had."
"I had always wanted to go to KU," Maria said. "My first visit, I went to a game, and I just loved the spirit of the Jayhawks, the pom-pom girls, the flare and the University's name, and it has always been in the top 30 schools. It was just fabulous."
Maria Craddick, her mother, graduated in 1977 with a degree in Spanish, and Mike Craddick, her father, studied graphic design and photography. He graduated in 1978.
Allisons three aunts, Irene
Laskowski, Cecila Sheppard and Anna McNamara, all attended the University as well. The Craddick family has Jayhawks around their house, wears Jayhawk T-shirts on game days and all know the Rock Chalk Chant. Along with these traditions, one of Allison's favorites comes from her mom being on the dance team while she was enrolled at the University.
"While we watch the games at home, whenever the fight song plays we whip out my mom's big blue pom-poms and do the dance," Allison said.
"My family didn't pressure me at all, but I liked knowing I'd be coming to a place where my family had walked through the same doors, and walked on the same sidewalks," she said. "I was following in their footsteps."
Even with this history in their household, Allison still applied to other schools but ultimately decided the University was for her.
"My grandpa taught me the Rock Chalk Jayhawk Chant when I was little to piss off my uncle because he went to K-State," Megan Drew, Overland Park freshman, said.
During Homecoming week, many students look back on their first Jayhawk memories.
Drew not only has a mom and a dad who have graduated from the University, but a great-
grandfather who is also a KU alum, and a grandmother who was part of the KU faculty.
"My mom went to KU, and passed on the Jayhawk spirit to me," she said. "We always watched the basketball games before I was deciding what college I was going to. We would all sit glued to the TV"
Rachel Peizuch, Lenexa freshman,remembers being young and watching basketball games with her family.
Kansan correspondent Caitlin Thornbruch can be contacted at editor@kansan.com.
From one generation to the next, the University environment can be found at any age and will always stay in the family.
— Edited by Jodi Ann Holopirek
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