"I have a lot of life-long friends and am most grateful for that."

Jason, Senior in the College of Business

Major: Business Education and an Industrial Technology Endorsement
Hometown: Rockford, Illinois

Favorite part of the day: Whenever it is nighttime, I am a night owl.
Favorite residence hall food: Has to be Subway. I eat Subway all of the time. Luckily, every area on campus has a Subway so I am never put out too much.

Hangouts: My girlfriend's house, Coffee shops
Favorite place to study: The library, whenever you go there it seems like time passes at a different speed.

"I chose to attend Illinois State because of its Education Department. It is ranked very high in their ability to prepare teachers for the future, and I wanted to be teacher so this it the best place to go.

"My favorite class that I have had at Illinois State would be the MQM 100 I had with Mary Kay Roach. She just....it was my favorite class because she was just a great teacher. She literally made it so that you wanted to go to class, and you would actually blow off anything just to get to class and you would get there early just to talk to her. She has the knack of bringing her own family life into the class and actually making it a part of her lesson. I envy her as a teacher and as a person.

"The most difficult thing about going to college is dealing with the amount of free time you will have. In high school, you have a blocked day - like you go to school at 7 o’clock and you leave at 3. You’re busy the entire time. In college, you might have a class at 8 o’clock and might not have another class until 3, so the biggest thing for me was getting used to doing my work and like not playing in the middle of the day and not getting lazy.

"One thing I have found that working on campus has allowed me to do is that it helps me manage my time a lot better because I have set times to do everything. Like I have my work time, and I know on a certain day if I have to work that I am going to have to get like the homework done before work or it just helps me manage my time. A lot of students work in the food courts. A lot of people don’t want to do that, but it’s usually the best place to work just because they always have jobs there. A lot of people work in the Bone Student Center. There are a few tour guides running around, which is the best job. There are a lot of jobs on campus that people work at. Pretty much anything you can think of, there is a job for it."