Iowa is the best University in the state, the US, and probably the world

I’m pretty convinced Iowa State cheated in our last basketball game. And all the Stanford players take steroids

I’m a freshman from Colorado and have no problem bragging about it. I have the state flag hanging proudly above my desk. I have Colorado PJ’s. I have a Colorado water bottle. I love where I’m from, and yet was rapidly exhausted by the question I began to receive when people found out where I was from: “Why would you come from Colorado to Iowa?”

The simple answer: who wouldn’t?

When I go home I am first and foremost a student at the University of Iowa. Over winter break I wore my black and gold game day bibs skiing. I bragged about my school any time the opportunity arose. I identify proudly as a Hawkeye.

“Just a mountain girl falling in love with the heartland”

The school pride is indescribable

One of the reasons that I’m baffled when other students ask me why I went to Iowa is because as far as I know, everyone who goes here loves it. For those who grew up in Iowa or even neighboring Illinois, maybe it seems normal to see people in Hawkeye colors everywhere you go.

Maybe the allure of walking across a campus and seeing our school mascot, name, and colors plastered across a huge amount of the student body is typical, but let me tell you – it’s not. When I toured Iowa I was blown away by the school pride, and even had multiple students interrupt our tour guide to shout things like “Go Hawks!” or even “GO TO IOWA IT’S THE BEST CHOICE I EVER MADE.”

Even in Colorado I see more evidence of Hawkeye fans than many other college teams. When I wear something related to Iowa I will not go a day without someone commenting on it.

Does no one else get the urge to just yell “I love you Iowa” on a regular basis?

Yes, people did shout “Go Hawks” as I skied past

Being in the big ten is a big deal

There are somewhere around 2,000 four year degree colleges in the US. ESPN.com reports twenty five NCAA football conferences. Across the country, though, Big Ten schools are recognized as powerhouses full of fanatics.

Everyone has heard of the University of Iowa Hawkeyes, and probably knows that we’re a proud bunch of people at that. We also made it to the Rose Bowl, are currently ranked No. 5 in men’s basketball, and as far as I’m concerned we’re the best at everything.

I’m pretty convinced Iowa State cheated in our last basketball game and all the Stanford players take steroids.

Ashely Ambroson poses on the Big Ten Network with her own Fran cutout at the Northwestern game

FAC is well catered for

Have you been to Java House? Fermosa? Short’s Burgers? Some of the best restaurants I’ve ever eaten at are all a twenty minute walk from my dorm. I could have chose this school just for the coffee house filled with abstract art and old wood tables. It’s not just a coffee shop/food enthusiasts paradise though…the business owners here know who they’re catering to.

The bars are so close to campus that we simply call it FAC (Friday After Class) when we can close our laptops in class and are at the bars ten minutes later, they have mac and cheese pizza available until 2 or 3 am, order-up for almost anything, and if anyone says that they’re bored in Iowa City the translations is that they’re lazy.

Writstbands = free souvenirs to commemorate the nights you don’t even remember

Everybody’s smart: we really do work hard to earn all that playing

Here’s where a little of my bias comes in – I did largely come here for the English program. Tennessee Williams, Flannery O’Connor, and Kurt Vonnegut are only a few among the notable students or teachers at the Iowa Writers Workshop. Iowa City is recognized as the only UNESCO City of Literature in the Northern Hemisphere, and flipping through a World Travel book I literally yelled in joy when I saw Prairie Lights listed as one of the best bookstores in the world – the very place where I got to attend a reading by one of the authors I read in my freshman creative writing class.

The sidewalks themselves along Iowa Ave have the words of great authors engraved in to them for goodness sakes- and I’m not the only one attending one of the best schools in my field. Just as many students probably didn’t know that the creative writing program is the highest ranked in the country, I had no idea that Iowa is a haven for so many other programs.

Our graduate school is ranked number 1 in speech-language pathology, number 2 in audiology, nurse administration, and physician assistant and has 22 other programs ranked in the top 25 in the nation (according to U.S. News).

One of many features on the sidewalk on either side of Iowa Ave

The campus is paradise

Our squirrels are cuter here.

I saw a bald eagle eating breakfast this morning, there’s a river running through campus, trees that create AMAZING colors in the fall, hills that give our student population pretty nice butts, and we even have a beach….

Nick Larson poses with MacBride Hall, home to Iowa’s own museum of natural science (but the real view is that mustache)

Just hanging by the seashore (see what I did there?)

“Isn’t Iowa just a bunch of corn?”

I could quite literally keep rambling for pages (at a Christmas party at home somebody was warned that “she wont’ stop talking if you ask anything about Iowa”).

GO HAWKS.

More
University of Iowa