Oklahoma State University is known for many things. It's known for America's Greatest Homecoming Celebration, Boone Pickens Stadium and the Historic Gallagher Iba Arena. There's no doubt OSU alumni miss each of these things, but there are even more smaller things we graduates miss possibly even more. In honor of Homecoming this week and the 100,000+ OSU alumni that will descend upon Stillwater, Oklahoma, here are a few things most all OSU graduates are guaranteed to miss after the bittersweet transition from student to graduate.
1) Sitting in the student section
Whether you stand in line hours before game time to get the best seat at Boone Pickens Stadium or arrive just in time to get the last floor seat at a basketball game in Gallagher Iba, there's no better seat than a seat in the student section with a few thousand of your classmates. After graduation, you have to get real tickets with assigned seats, and that's just not as fun as the first come, first serve seat selection process. From the nerves during pregame intros to the post-game singing of the Alma Mater with your arms around friends and strangers, there's no better place to watch a game than the student section.
2) Hearing the Edmon Low Library play the Alma Mater
Photo Credit: Kurt Steiss
Edmon Low has some pipes. You can hear those bells all over Stillwater, but there's no better place to hear them than on campus. After graduation, you'll wish every city had its own Edmon Low to remind you it was time to go to work.
3) Wearing the color orange every other day
Photo Credit: Matt Fletcher
There's something about the color orange that isn't as common in the real world as it is at OSU. If you wear orange two days in a row, people begin to wonder why you're dressing so brightly. It's hard for anyone to understand that after four years at Oklahoma State, half of your wardrobe turned orange and you have no idea how.
4) The Colvin Center
Photo Credit: Oklahoma State University Wellness
One of the biggest perks to being an OSU student is that you get a FREE gym membership to one of the best university recreation centers in the country. Unfortunately, that runs out after graduation, and what's even more unfortunate? Gym memberships can be expensive.
5) Walking to class
Photo Credit: Oklahoma State University Registrar's Office
It may sound crazy. Who would miss walking to class? Especially when you have to walk north up Monroe Street when it's 30 degrees outside with a north wind blowing 40 mph in your face. Trust me, you'll miss it. You'll miss the walks with friends to and from class, and you'll miss the random conversations that weren't supposed to last 20 minutes but did anyway, making you miss your next lecture.
6) The Library Lawn/Theta Pond combo
Photo Credit: GW_Bentonville
OSU has one of the nation's most beautiful campuses, and part of that reason is because of Theta Pond and Library Lawn. Remember feeding the ducks or playing the world's largest game of Twister? Yup. Both are great places unique and special to OSU that you won't be able to find anywhere else.
7) The "small-town" feel
Photo Credit: Oklahoma State University's Office of the Registrar
The campus at Oklahoma State University is like the nicest little town you could ever be a part of. The people can't be beat, there's always something to do and no matter where you go, people are smiling. It's a feeling unlike any other.
8) The school spirit
Where else in the entire world can you have a cowboy walking around with a 12-gauge shotgun and .357 revolver in hand ready to fire at any given moment sending whoever is within a 300 yard radius into a rousing 'OOOOOO-SSSSSSSS-U!' chant?
9) The buildings
There's something special about the buildings at OSU, and it isn't just that all the architecture matches. The buildings will be there for generations. They will be there if your kids go to school there and if your grandkids go to school there, and you'll be able to say, "I had a class in that same classroom." It's pretty sweet when generations can share memories like that.
10) The friends that become family
There's no place in the world that you'll make friends like you do at OSU. It's the friends that used to just be "random" roommates that you didn't even know. It's a friend that you asked out on an awkward first date. It's the friends that become family that you'll remember forever, and that makes the OSU experience what it is. There is nothing like being a part of the Cowboy Family.
Go Pokes and Happy Homecoming!