PEOPLE
KU MUSIC MOVED HER Eileen Gitter Fairbanks, Alaska, senior
Visiting a homesick friend, Eileen Gitter came to the University two years ago for the first time. She sat in on a few music education classes — her own major back at University of Alaska at Fairbanks — and was inspired.
Thinking at first of switching her own major, she instead decided to spend the next two and a half years finishing her degree in Lawrence. She plays flute in a 20-person section instead of four like in Alaska, and says the competition pushes her to be better.
She says her favorite thing about Kansas is autumn, but it's well worth giving up to be
Eileen Glitter (far left) poses with friends in bikinis when the temperature was -39 degrees.
closer to her family again. She says her father's military service took her family all over while she was growing up, but she's never lived far away from her immediate family. The hardest thing about being at school is that she can't always go home when she needs to, such as when her father was in the hospital unexpectedly.
She says she loves Alaska and intends to move back and get a teaching job this May. After graduation, she's road tripping back with her sister.
"Ilovethatthere's civilization, but you can go out into the wilderness," she says about Alaska. "I'm used to having a moose in my front yard." She says she's even seen moose playing in her sprinkler.
KANSAS DREAMIN'
Eric Meyer Fairbanks, Alaska sophomore
Eric Meyer came to the University of Kansas because it was affordable and well-known among Alaskans — and because of the tornadoes.
"I like it here. It's a different environment," he says about the flatlands and severe weather.
Meyershe thoughtabout attending a handful of schools in the lower 48,but ultimately chose the University because of the people who stood out
when he visited here.
He misses home a little and calls his parents every weekend,but because a plane ticket can cost over $500,he only goes home twice a year: over Christmas and during the summer, he says. This summer he'll fly home after school gets out and road trip back to Kansas within a week to make it back to work in Lawrence all summer.
He's enjoying the larger town atmosphere — Fairbanks has a little more than 30,000 people—and the laid-back lifestyle, although he still mountain bikes on trails throughout
Lawrence, a hobby he brought with him from home. He says the trails in Kansas are challenging enough to keep him busy.
Eric Meyer went camping with his family before he left Alaska to attend KU.
JAYHAWK GETAWAY Jamie Nishimura Mililani Town, Hawaiian, junior
For Jamie Nishimura Hanalei Bay on the island of Kauai was close to home.
Although she came to the University to get away from Hawaii and other Hawaiians who went to school on the West Coast, Jamie Nishimura ended up finding friends in other Hawaiian KU students.
She likes the small town atmosphere and the cheap
living expenses compared to Oahu, where nearly everything has to be imported, but she ultimately chose the University because she'd been here before: During her freshman year in high school, she came to KU for three weeks for the Duke University Talent Program.
Nishimura, a microbiology major, is now sitting out the last few months of the year that the University of Kansas requires
for out-of-state students to gain residency. She made the decision after paying two years of out-of-state tuition and joining the Air Force National Guard while struggling to keep up with her busy schedule, and says that this is the right year to take some time off to work.
She says that having four seasons was a novelty at first, but now the winters here seem to get longer and longer. Nishimura misses her family, but has made a group of dependable, caring friends who have helped her avoid homesickness, including a few fellow Hawaiian KU students. She says she intends to move back to Hawaii after her time in the AFNG is up.
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