Looking back at my four years as an Ohio State student I had several positive learning experiences.
College makes you grow up faster than spending four years on a couch in your parents’ basement. I learned to do my own laundry, cook and how to navigate a new city.
I also had a lot of good times I would never forget.
Sitting in the first row on the five-yard line at the 2008 Michigan game– my last home game as a student– is one of those adventures that most people would cite as their favorite OSU memory.
But it epically fails to measure up to when my brother-in-law, Mark and my sister, Stephanie, made their annual Columbus visits since my freshman year. I idealized my sister Stephanie since I was a teenager. She was the first person in my family to go to OSU, and I was more than proud to follow in her footsteps. After she graduated in 2001, she made a name for herself as one of Chicago’s top publicists. A couple of years later, she started her own public relations company outside of South Bend, Ind. Despite her hectic schedule, she always made sure I had summer internships and a positive outlook come finals.
Mark and Stephanie would always stay at the Holiday Inn on Lane Avenue for football games one weekend a year. It was such a treat to hang out with them at Hineygate along my sister’s college friends. Spending time with them while going to a Bucks game is a memory that will follow me to a nursing home one day.
My memories go beyond campus as well. In January 2008, Mark and Stephanie took me with them to New Orleans for the football national championship game. They bought me a hotel room, a round-trip flight and a fifth row from the field game ticket for my birthday/Christmas present. While in New Orleans we went on a swamp tour, blew big bucks at a casino and attended various OSU-sponsored rallies. We also hung out on Bourbon Street for much of our stay as it is the New Orleans’ tourism norm.
I also experienced the people of New Orleans still struggling to rebuild their city– a city with a laid-back Southern demeanor accompanied with widespread homelessness. “The Big Easy” looked more like “The Big Despair.” Some of the images I witnessed like abandoned houses or shanty towns under highway overpasses will never leave my memory.
Seeing those parts of the city gave me a greater appreciation for all I have in life: a wonderful family and the chance to go to college, to name a few. I probably would have never experienced that if the 2007 football team did not make it to the national championship game.
Another thing that will never leave my memory is the astonishing things my sister has done to ensure I had an incredible OSU experience.
Marc Feher can be reached at [email protected].
