By Docker Haub
Staff Reporter
Every student that comes through Northwestern Oklahoma State University comes here for a different reason.
For me, I chose to attend Northwestern in order to continue my athletic career and be able to play the game of football for a few more years. Little did I know, I would also come here and meet my best friends for life and some of the most intelligent teachers that I have had the opportunity to learn from.
Life in Alva can be an emotional rollercoaster. Sometimes you can feel like your excluded from the rest of society and the rest of the world, but that’s not always a bad thing.
When you don’t have as many things to do as you would in a big city, it leaves you with an opportunity to spend more time with your friends talking about whatever is on your mind at the time and coming up with your own ways to have fun.
In my four years at Northwestern, I’ve met many different people from many different places. Rather it be Texas, California, Florida, or even Nepal and Australia, everyone comes here with their own history and their own experiences but no matter where they’re from, they always learn something new or experience something new in rural Oklahoma that they’ve never experienced before.
For some, it could be the first time seeing a wheat field, a grain elevator or even a tractor driving down the highway, and for others it could be the first time experiencing American culture.
In my opinion, every college in America is the same. You go to class, you participate in extracurricular activities and you enjoy time with your friends.
Every college student has their likes and their dislikes about the university that they attend, but it’s what you do with the time that you have as a student at that university that decides what kind of college experience you will have.
As my time here at Northwestern comes to a close, I look to the future with excitement but I also look on the past with a slight feeling of sadness.
No longer will I be able to meet up with my friends after class and talk about what happened throughout the day or what our plans are for that night, no longer will I be able to walk across campus and seek advice from a trusted professor or advisor and no longer will I be able to enjoy participating in athletics with my teammates.
But when I think about my past four years at Northwestern, my sadness quickly turns to joy and contentment because I know that when I need a friend to talk to, I know who to call.
When I need advice and I need to speak to someone with wisdom, I know who to call.
If there is one thing that I’ve learned at Northwestern, it’s that if you are once a Ranger, you are always a Ranger, and there are few greater families than your Ranger family.