At my EIU Debut, an administrator said a small number of people have college degrees out of the entire world.

This statistic revealed how only a small portion of people get to fully experience and complete college.

The rest of my debut would explain other significant benefits I would receive by becoming an Eastern student.

One of the first questions that I can remember being asked to us future college students was if any of us thought we may have trouble with academics.

I didn’t think I would have any trouble with any of my classes, but I was impressed when the administrator gave us information about resources we could use if we do have academic trouble.

The administrator showed us that Eastern faculty were here to help, and professors and other faculty have helped me out with my classes in the past.

Not only did the orientation workers encourage us academically, they also wanted us to grow socially and emotionally.

The debut workers encouraged us to be involved with campus groups and activities.

I really didn’t believe joining organizations would be significant to me.

But I joined different student publications and religious organizations and made more personal connections with others.

One section at the beginning of the orientation was where a speaker told of stories of married couples who originally met at Eastern.

She said we may even run into our future spouses while we are here at Eastern.

While my mom was getting emotional, I really didn’t take any of the stories seriously.

Well, I don’t think it’s safe to say that my boyfriend is my future husband, but at least we did start dating because of the school.

The students and faculty of my debut mostly showed us that Eastern benefits us in more ways than we could have imagined or thought about, like establishing close relationships with people.

The administrators had let us know that we were already a part of the university, not just academically speaking, but socially speaking as well.

They encouraged us to use all of our talents to benefit people around us and enjoy ourselves.

Next year will be my last year at Eastern, and I can say that coming to Eastern has been one of the best decisions I’ve made in my life so far.

Hopefully, others will feel the same way once they have spent some time here.

The administrators and students who help organize the debuts work hard to put them together and care about the future students coming to the university.

I would like to thank all of the people involved with EIU Debuts, and I encourage them to remain an inspiration to incoming students.

Alesha Bailey is a senior journalism major. She can be reached at 581-7942 or at