Northwestern revisited

On Saturday, I went to Leighton's graduation in a master program of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern. I get to revisit my alma mater! I haven't been back to Evanston for so long. The School of Journalism is a totally foreign place to me. I was in the College of Arts and Sciences. After the freshman orientation I never even walk near that area. Medill is named after the famous journalist who was the editor of the Chicago Tribune... Oh he was even the mayor... In order to have a school after you, you must be either a famous for something, or donate a lot of money to the school (which makes you famous).

So it is June, all the students are gone for the summer. I didn't see any young students with Northwestern T-shirts playing frisbees and hitting the books. I didn't see any posters on the floor for student events... Besides those attending graduations, it is mostly quiet.

There are two lakefronts at NU. One is the real lake front and there is a landfill area with a lagoon with a water fountain. It is beautiful place to walk around... Yikes, the Class of 1980 stone chair got ripped off. What's going on? Is it broken? Oh and there are weeds so high now. No one taking care of the grasses by the lagoon?

The Deering Library is the most interesting place in NU. There is a tunnel that leads the modern library to the 1800s library like a time tunnel! The building climbing plants (what do you call it?) are covering a LOT MORE area than it was when I was undergraduate! They are devouring the old buildings fast!

The undergraduate years surely is a unique experience... Oh I am at my current job longer than I have been in NU, and I don't grow as much in the years at work as the years in school... So school was actually more exciting.

Folks, learning does not stop at graduation. One keeps learning. Graduation merely means I completed a prescribed set of required courses. Unfortunately, work life has less interesting things to learn.