COLUMN: Owl Day just the awesome beginning

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by Marty Makulski

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If you haven't been able to tell yet, everyone here is quite enthusiastic that y'all decided to visit us, and we hope that you will be coming back next fall.

As a high school senior, I never had the opportunity to attend Owl Day, and I regret it.

Had I come, it would have made my college decision so much easier.

In some ways Owl Day is a sort of campus holiday; people spend a lot of time having fun by attending plays, meeting new faces and getting ready for the Kicker Party.

For a few days, work is sloughed off for the cause of celebrating being a part of Rice.

Sure, as a prospective student, you lack the homework headaches the rest of us face, but you are also missing out on perhaps the greatest part of this university -- that is, the academic challenge.

Rice is a place where you can test your own limits, whether those limits are academic, social or extracurricular in nature.

So right now you're not getting the full experience, rather just a taste of it.

In many other ways, though, the spirit of Owl Day lives on everyday on this campus.

There's always some theatrical production showing, someone interesting to meet with at the CoffeeHouse and countless other ways to avoid studying.

You'll meet people from all over the country, studying every possible subject -- an amazingly dynamic and vibrant student body engaged in serious academic pursuit while maintaining a better-than-average social life.

And don't think that your interactions will be limited to your peers.

Rice is fortunate to have one of the most outstanding faculties in the country in almost every field.

The level of interest in you by your profs will be unsurpassed. Just look around at lunch today and see just how many faculty are there eating with students.

In short, if you have liked what you've seen so far, you'll never regret your decision to come here.

Have a great stay and (after this weekend) enjoy a very easy college decision.

Marty Makulski is a Jones College senior.

This item appeared in the Opinion section of the April 21, 1995 issue.

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