life at eiu

Hello there,
For those new to the blog, my name is Dan Rolando and I am now a senior physics and economics major at EIU. I’m also in the University Honors Program. A few of the things I do around Eastern’s campus are Sigma Alpha Epsilon, a social Greek fraternity, Phi Sigma Pi, a co-ed honors fraternity, Knights of Columbus, a Catholic male social and fraternal group, and I’m a Resident Assistant in Douglas Hall.
So, another school year and another set of challenges rises up before me. I am facing my toughest academic semester yet as I move into all of my senior level physics and economics classes. I am also looking to do departmental honors for physics and economics so that means I have even more extra research on top of those other classes. I can handle it though, and it only goes to show you that EIU has something to challenge even the most academically oriented students!
Aside from my schoolwork, I am trying to enjoy my senior year a little bit. My fraternity, Sigma Alpha Epsilon, just received its charter this past summer after two years of proving ourselves as a colony here on Eastern’s campus. Along with this charter came a renewed sense of pride and motivation for my fraternity brothers and me. We had a great pledge class this fall and nearly doubled our numbers! Things are looking as we get ready for Greek Week in the spring. SAE is looking to turn some heads this year for sure.
I am working on balancing being president of three organizations: SAE, Phi Sigma Pi and Society of Physics Students, along with all of my schoolwork. This has been quite rough. I’m seeing a lot less free time and a lot more pages in my books, but the key component has been enjoying all of my involvements. Even though I have a meeting literally every single night of the week, every organization is important to me and I have fun with the people involved, so it barely seems like a responsibility at all. The one piece of advice I would offer anyone-freshmen, transfer students, or even seniors who’ve been at EIU their whole college careers-is to think about your future commitment to an organization before joining. I have been lucky to become involved with many things that I find I have a passion for and a commitment to. But I have seen many people join clubs thinking that it’s right for them only to become burnt out with the responsibilities later. Some chose to quit the organization, or even worse, stayed in and just had a miserable time.
That being said, DO go out and get involved because the more you involve yourself outside of the classroom, the better college experience you will have. When President William Perry says that he wants Eastern Illinois University to be the best college in the nation at integrating the academic and social development of its students, I can say with confidence that we are well on our way. At Eastern, there is a true dedication to the student above all else, and this is why I love EIU and hope everyone else can share my same experience with this university!
Dan Rolando

My summer finally has ended and school has started for me again. My second year at Eastern has started somewhat ok, although I have had a rough couple of days; however it has slowly gotten better. The drive down with my mom is so long because we live right outside of Chicago and that means the drive is three hours long. When I arrived at EIU and saw my friends the stress just melted away.

In the first weeks, I lost my Panther card, my favorite sweater and I burned my thumb getting stir fry at Carman dining center. All that bad luck made me feel like the end of the world was coming. Luckily, I found my panther card but after I had paid $20 for a new one (still did not find my sweater!). When it comes to school, I have some really good teachers, but some challenging courses this semester. My friends have been really helpful and without them I would be lost. Registration for classes next semester start next week and so I hope my schedule will be a good as my fall classes. Crossing my fingers!
Until next time!

Well, this is my first time blogging for good ol' Eastern Illinois University, and I'm pretty excited excited about it.

To start out, I would like to introduce myself. My name is Jake Schlich and I am a freshman here at EIU. I am a music education major with an emphasis in percussion. I am from Belleville, Illinois, and for those of you that don't know where that is, it's about 15 minutes west of St. Louis, just across the river. I enjoy listening to pretty much any kind of music. I love playing all kinds of music, playing basketball, and soccer, and having a good time with old friends and making new ones.

Now, that you know who I am, I think it's time for you to know a bit more about my experiences here at EIU. My college experience started a little less than a week before everyone else's. Since I am in the marching band, I was able to move in early.

My first week here was just band camp, and no, there were none of the "this one time, at band camp" stories. This is college, and we are above that here. But I will say that I am enjoying college marching band far more than I enjoyed high school marching band. Everybody likes being here and it is a really good time because of that. The music is really fun to play and the crowd really gets into it.

So far, I love everything here at Eastern. The teachers are all really awesome, and everyone seems really friendly. I don't know why, but everyone seems a lot cooler than they were in high school, just something I picked up on here in Charleston. Also, the food is way better than in high school, well my high school at least. But I will have to say, my single favorite thing about coming to EIU, is the one and only, Doudna Fine Arts Center. Coming from a moderately well taken care of music program, to Eastern's was such an upgrade.

But back to the whole class thing... All of my classes are going well, the teachers are all really good at what they do. I was really nervous at first about my classes because I wasn't sure if I would be able to deal with the whole college thing. But thus far it has been fairly easy, due to my teachers' ability to engage the students.

That's all for now.

-Jake