Currently, there are approximately thirty-three thousand undergraduate students enrolled at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Thirty-three thousand students, not to mention the near fifteen thousand graduate and one thousand professional students who also call the University their home, across a myriad of disciplines and studies, activities and extracurriculars, plans, hopes, and dreams. All in all, this adds up to a student body of approximately fifty thousand people.
That's enough people to form a large town.
This school is a monolith in all senses of the word. From its beautiful, towering buildings to its endless list of academic honors and acknowledgments, it is a force to be reckoned with on the educational stage. Influential and inspiring guests, like Barack Obama and Tarana Burke, constantly visit the school to share their stories and teach their resolute truths. However, the most unique thing about the University of Illinois is not the grandeur of its buildings or the influence of these revered guests, but instead, the student body that passes in and out of those buildings, that attend those speeches and presentations, on a day to day basis.
These students are some of the most diverse, each bringing their own stories and experiences to share. The soles of their shoes have run marathons, crossed oceans, trekked through foreign countries, marched for their beliefs, and walked on insightful strolls. Their hearts have known hardship and sorrow, elation and triumph. Their minds have been molded to fit years of education and will fit many years more. Each student that attends this university makes it a hub for international and interpersonal growth, and that is no simple feat to accomplish.
I have been a student at the University of Illinois for a month now, and my decision to both attend the school and live in the Global Crossroads LLC has quite possibly been one of the most rewarding decisions I've made, if not the most. As a member of the living-learning community, I live among individuals from all reaches of the globe and all walks of life; some of them have even become my close friends in the span of a few weeks. Through events and discussions hosted by the LLC, we collaborate on global issues; just the other day, we discussed stereotypes and how destructive they are to the groups of people affected. It's an intellectually and personally stimulating environment, and it's one that spreads across campus as well.
On any given day, I can hear a variety of foreign languages and see a lot of different people, whether it's on my floor or across campus. There is a diversity of origin, as well as thought, and that is one of the most important things about receiving a college education. The ability to understand opinions and beliefs that are different from yours is not a sign of weakness, but rather, one of strength. We cannot simply learn about the subjects that fit our majors. In order to be successful, progressive, and innovative members of society, we must each possess the ability to listen, to understand, to tolerate, and to collaborate for a better future. In a world of seven billion people, a population and society that grows each day, no one belief can preside over the other multitudes of voices without reason.
And that's what college teaches us. That's what the University of Illinois teaches us. By immersing students into an environment full of people who have grown up differently from you, who do not look like you, think like you, act like you, it allows for its students to understand the true nature of our modern society. We are standing on the path to the future, and the decisions we make are not limited to our personal lives, but the lives of the other fifty thousand students, the other seven billion people we share that path with.
