My $12,000 Cover Charge
Written: Oct 04 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: State Street, the Agricultural Frat, Coed Dorms, House Parties, Football & Hockey
Cons: Sorority Girls, Liberals, You Actually Have to Go to Class
The Bottom Line: Sometimes all we need is one good year of misconduct to provide us with a lifetime of reasons to behave.
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| nifer's Full Review: University of Wisconsin-Madison |
My poor, dear 'ol dad. He so did not want me to go to this school. You see, we had a deal -- as long as I was attending school (and had his last name -- that will be important to know for a yet-to-be-written review), I'd have a place to live, and someone to foot the tab. Not too shabby, hey? However, because his dream for me consisted of 1) getting an undergrad in business, 2) attending law school so I could become a corporate attorney, and 3) eventually obtaining my MBA, just for good measure, he didn't feel that UW-Madison was the right place to start. UW-Whitewater, he insisted, was a better school for a business degree, and then I could move on to Madison, or Marquette, whichever would have me when the time was right. The school for the MBA was, in his mind, to be determined at a later date.
Fate, it seems, was not on dear 'ol dad's side. I had been to UW-Whitewater during my Junior year for a high schoolers writing conference and HATED IT. Talk about your typical Wisconsin nightmare -- this school is surrounded for 30 miles in any direction by nothing but farmer's fields and there was no way I was going to spend one second of my life there, and made that abundantly clear from the moment I returned from the conference to the moment dad, a friend, and I sat on the side of the freeway on the way to tour the school with a flat tire, waiting for the tow truck. I never did make it back to Whitewater for the tour, and when my acceptance letter came in from Madison dad finally gave in and drove me out there for my first in-person tour of my future home.
It took about a half-second for me to fall in love with this school. It was big, beautiful, historic, grand, and had fabulous looking people (and by people I do mean guys) walking all about. Half way down University Drive I exploded with, "I am SO going to school here -- this place is awesome!" and dad just cringed.
Once late August of 1991 came about, I couldn't get out there fast enough. The family moved me in quick and took off (dad's a big softy) leaving me to spread out in my new room just off the elevators and stairs on the fourth floor of the east building of Ogg Hall, the most notorious (at the time) coed party dorm on the most notorious (at the time) party campus. Eventually my new roommate Gina moved in, and here's what you need to know about her -- she smoked Marlboro lights, could drink a six-pack of Mountain Dew minutes before bed and fall asleep before her head hit the pillow, had a boyfriend who talked too much the first half of the school year and one that never said a word the second, had a deep and profound love of Jim Morrison and the country song "Fishin' in the Dark," and grew up in Middleton which is just outside of Madison so she went home every single weekend.
Gina and I hit it off quickly, although she would grow to resent my insomnia and inability to wake up to my alarm clock in the morning, no matter how close or far from my head I positioned it. We compromised during the second semester -- I didn't sign up for any classes that started prior to 10 a.m., and she promised to not murder me -- but I digress.
The thing that is most important to know about UW-Madison is that there is temptation and distraction lurking everywhere. I would walk past Bascom Hill on the way to class, and there would be 100 white crosses planted in the ground to symbolize all the babies aborted in the world that day, and on the way back from class there would be a wire coat hanger placed on each cross. I swear, it would happen that fast. Eventually, I just stopped shutting my room door whenever I was home because the traffic of smokers-with-roommates-that-didn't-smoke, smokers-who-needed-to-bum-a-smoke, and non-smokers-who-thought-the-smoking-crowd-was-cooler was non-stop. By Wednesday night, the parties had either already started or were being planned for the weekend, and if there weren't any parties (aka -- Monday) there were plenty of other ways for a group of undergrads with limitless freedom to keep from studying.
Overall, I did obtain quite an education during the year I spent at UW-Madison, although it wasn't quite what my dad had in mind for me when he forked over $12,000 for tuition, books, boarding, and food. I learned that the Agricultural Fraternity makes the best wop, sorority girls LOVE red lipstick, newspapers and tape can make quite a fashionable Halloween costume, antibiotics are our friends, bubblegum machines and futons should not be place within 10-feet of each other, people who understand statistics have no business teaching statistics, regurgitated goldfish make a terrible mess, friends who telephone between 3:00 a.m. and 5:00 a.m. need your full attention, never utilize public transportation alone, They Might Be Giants is God's gift to music, I will never be a liberal, tall guys can look down your shirt without much effort, and sometimes the unwashed masses really do just want your money so they can buy a beer.
I'm sure that academically UW-Madison is everything the brochure claims it is and more. If I would have bothered to go to class and study, I might have done very well there. Unfortunately for dad's checkbook, I just wasn't there for that. I just needed one year of complete and utter irresponsibility in between the pains of growing up and the sorrows of growing old. UW-Madison provided that for me, as well as some fantastic friends and the best gut-busting stories of my lifetime. Should you send your child here for their freshman year of college? Probably not. Would I allow mine to go here if they wanted to? Absolutely.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
nifer
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Member: Jennifer
Location: Milwaukee 'burbs
Reviews written: 73
Trusted by: 77 members
About Me:
I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious. ~ Albert Einstein
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