Every year I grow prouder of my school.

I was studying for a while in Suzzallo Library when I came across this pamphlet talking about the history of the library. Looking through it reminded me of photos I saw of old Berlin, Breitscheidplatz-Charlottenburg area in particular near the Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächtniskirche (yeah I know, names aren’t short). It’s fun to imagine how UW might have looked in the past, before it’s various reconstructions. It appeared as though we would have been walking through European-esque streets of gothic buildings. Considering how big the campus is now, it’d be like we would be living in a small town surrounded by a lake, forest, and Mt. Rainier in the background. It’s pretty exciting to think about actually. I’ve included a picture below:

But aside from the past, let’s look to the future.
Each quarter it’s turning out that the admissions bar for the business school is rising. That sucks for everyone who has yet to apply, but that’s awesome for me! Hah. I wish it would just keep getting higher, and then I could tell people that I went to the Foster School of Business and they’d think to themselves…”Wow. That must have been intense.” It sorta was but now even more so. A lot of good things have been happening for it too. We just got $50 million worth of gifts from the Foster Foundation, so plans are in the works to completely remodel our business building. Right now it looks like a dungeon, but soon it will look like this:

I won’t be around to appreciate the new building, but I still feel proud in the development of my school. Build up the reputation so I can use it for life. Hah I pay to be an alumni of this school.

Furthermore, being on Senate has given me an inside scoop of the new reconstruction of our student union building as well. It is planned to break ground in two years and be one of the most green-friendly buildings in the country – fulfilling some type of criteria that makes it green certified or something like that. I wish I had renditions to show, but I do not. All I can say is that it looks like a shopping mall/airport/German modern-art spectacle.

The only downside to all of this is that I feel the new buildings no longer represent the classic style of the university. One of the major draws of UW are the classic buildings and feel on the campus. If everything were to be modeled after the modern and sleek, what will be our point of differentiation besides academics? But perhaps academics are the only thing that matters. Should that be my mindset? Haha.