What I like most and least about Carolina

…and when I die I’ll be a Tar Heel dead. It’s easy to say I love this place, to say I never want to leave, and to tell you there is no better place to spend the most fantastic four years of your life. But getting into details about what I like most and least is a much harder thing to do.

First, you have to LOVE Carolina athletics. GO HEELS!!! But, beyond that level of sheer excitement, I love this University. I love what it stands for and what it has come to mean to me.

What I like the most about Carolina (aside from the Tar Heels) is the experience I have gained over the past four years. I have been prepared to take on the world, but to serve others. But, what I have loved MOST about my experience at Carolina are the friends I have made. In the past four years, I have met some of the most amazing people – people who inspire me and keep me sane, people who are full of joy and ambition, but remain grounded and encouraging.

But these aren’t friends I have met in bars or at parties. These are friends I made in my classes when we have spent the night in the Journalism lab to finish a Multimedia Documentary Project and all lost our minds together. These are friends I met in the dorms freshman year and have played intramurals with for four years, friends who have graduated and kept in touch. College is such an amazing adjustment, and Carolina fosters the growth you need to handle the real world.

Yes, much of this growth has occurred in classes – I certainly know more now than I did four years ago, but college is more than a learning experience. Carolina is a phenomenal environment to find yourself and develop into the person you are meant to be.

So on to the bad…what do I like least about Carolina? This is honestly a hard question. I have had teachers I loved and teachers I disliked, but I have learned as much if not more from the ones I disliked. Every professor I have had has been willing to work with me at Carolina, so I am left saying that what I like least about Carolina…is the work load. Carolina is not a joke. By the time you reach your senior year, you are prepared for reality and your teachers assume you can handle the work load of a real job. While the teachers are getting better and better every semester, the work load seems to get more intense. While I have loved learning and developing through the learning process, it kills me to have to do as much work for a perspective class as I have to do for my major classes.

So there you have it – my most and least favorite things about Carolina. But to be honest, Carolina is just so wonderful – it’s like they say: you don’t love something because it’s perfect; it’s perfect because you love it.