“After weeks and weeks of escalating controversy via sarcasm (and rationality), I’ve decided to take a break. Maybe it’s senioritis; maybe it’s the fear of being run over by a car every time I cross the street. In any case, I feel as though it’s time to share a secret with my wounded audience: despite all my criticism of the University of Akron, I’m going to feel-what’s the word, sad?-when I walk across the stage on May 9.”
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After weeks and weeks of escalating controversy via sarcasm (and rationality), I’ve decided to take a break.

Maybe it’s senioritis; maybe it’s the fear of being run over by a car every time I cross the street. In any case, I feel as though it’s time to share a secret with my wounded audience: despite all my criticism of the University of Akron, I’m going to feel-what’s the word, sad?-when I walk across the stage on May 9.

It’s true; I actually enjoyed my four years here.

Not that I would take back any of my previous rants, of course. But believe it or not, there are some positive aspects of the University of Akron that I’m going to miss-a lot.

I can’t say it enough: I wrote an opinion piece on it before, and I’ve attempted to subtly infuse it into other articles. But no matter how many stadiums or gardens UA builds, I really feel that the quality of the professors is the best thing that our school has to offer. I’m talking about the professors I’ve had who have spent hours and hours making sure that I completely understand a concept; the professors who bent over backwards to keep their classes interesting but academic-the professors who placed my learning over their own personal research. I even had a professor who gave my class his home phone number-and I used it. Every time I tell my friends at schools like Georgia Tech or Johns Hopkins stories like these, they’re amazed; most undergraduate professors at institutions like those will just refer you to the TA and get back to their research. I’m positive that I’m going to receive one of the best engineering degrees in the country, if only for this reason.

There were other academic excellence opportunities I had, too-take the Honors College, for instance. I didn’t take advantage of the Honors College as much as I should have, but I can say that my year in the Honors dorm was incredible, and that I’ve been asked about the college several times on my law school applications-it really does make a difference.

Other less rigorous activities allowed me to get the most out of UA-and my money. I wanted to write, so I worked at The Buchtelite; I wanted to debate philosophy, so I went to a few Philosophy Club meetings; I wanted to find out more about mechanical engineering outside of the classroom, so I went to ASME. Even when I just wanted to go on spring break and have some abs, I went to some Pi-yo fusion (the name sold it to me) classes at the Rec center.
Whenever I had a desire to learn more about something, I found a relatively painless way to do it-at no cost to me, or my academics.

Now you’re going to be really impressed-I’ve even found a way around the But Akron is so boring! sentiment.

Well, it’s true that Akron is not New York City, and it isn’t even Cleveland. (Yet we have more crime than both! Just kidding. I think.)

But it is nice to have a lot of other bored people with you-you normally find stuff to do-and there’s always some new show, folk singer or even occasional bad rap artist willing to show off.

There have been very few Friday nights where I never found something to do. And of course, those who are over 21 know how hard it is to find good bars near a cheap area of living with personalized valet services (thank you, Roo Express and ASG).

Personally, I was most worried about the stigma that the University of Akron name would leave on my resume-but even that worry has been negated.

I’m quite satisfied with the law schools I’ve gained acceptance to, and some of my friends have even received graduate admission from ivy league schools.

I’m sure you’ve heard this all before, but it’s probably been from people who have been trained to say it you. Perhaps you should acknowledge the irony in the fact that I, Johanna Hariharan, am shamelessly advertising an institution whose faults have provided me with an income for the past two years. Johanna Hariharan, the new poster child for the University of Akron.

You know what’s even more ironic?

This is my longest column ever.

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