From the moment I could talk, “Go Green” was in my vocabulary. Growing up in a college town, you learn to watch the college kids come and go. For 18 years I watched East Lansing fill up every fall and empty out every summer, waiting for my turn to join.
I have been a Spartan since birth. I toyed with the idea of going to college out of state, but I couldn’t imagine not rooting for MSU football every fall or skipping my annual MSU-winning March Madness bracket. My parents met at Michigan State, fell in love with East Lansing and never left. So for me and my sibling, growing up meant every MSU football game, basketball game, Homecoming Parade.
I was in those parades years before I was an MSU student: with Spartan Dance in elementary school, with the East Lansing High School Marching Band and eventually with James Madison College Student Senate. Throwing candy out to all the kids reminded me of how I used to scramble to collect as much candy as possible with my friends.
Before I knew who Dora or Elmo were, I knew Tom Izzo. My dad would prop me up as a baby next to him on the couch for every game, and Izzo was almost as magical as Santa Claus to me. In middle school and high school, I snuck my phone into class so I could watch MSU play in March Madness. When I got to MSU, I knew I had to be front and center in the Izzone (and of course at the one and only Izzone campout). By my senior year, instead of sitting next to my dad on the couch, my dad was texting me videos of myself on the TV broadcast.
One of the most special moments was kissing the Spartan S at center court. I had watched 22 seasons of players and students kiss that S (whether I understood what basketball was yet or not). When it was finally my turn, I wasn’t just kissing a logo: I was stepping into something I’d been watching my whole life.
I didn’t know what James Madison College was until I got to Michigan State, and I only enrolled because someone in my graduating class suggested it. Little did I know that taking advice from a peer would change the course of my life. Attending a residential college within a large university is one of the best decisions I’ve made. Living in Case Hall my first year meant my classmates were also my neighbors, which created an instant community. My sophomore year I became a resident assistant (RA) in Case Hall, so I lived, worked and went to class in the same building. After that I moved to 1855 Place as an RA for student-athletes on the basketball and football teams.
On May 2, I graduate from MSU. Walking around East Lansing now, I notice that every part of it holds a memory, and the memories begin to stack. By the Red Cedar River, I remember feeding the ducks with my mom — and I wonder if any of those ducklings have ducklings of their own now. At my parents’ house, I remember running to the porch to listen for the stadium cheers after touchdowns. Downtown, I remember getting my license and taking my friends for a drive in my old slug bug, and I pass current students walking the same sidewalks I walked at 16.
The river, the stadium lights, the quiet streets in the summer: all of it I’ve experienced at different stages of my life. MSU has never been just a place I attended. It’s been the place that shaped me long before I ever stepped on campus as a student, and it will always be home in a way I can’t quite put into words.
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