The World's Best University

I laugh when U.S. News tells me that my University is ranked 42nd, because I know their formula cannot quantify our strengths. Our University and its people need the audacity to believe in our potential influence on the direction of the world. This campus is an oasis. Ideas grow. People grow. This is the place that divides our lives. We enter as children, and emerge unrecognizable to our past.

We should walk with confidence in our balance. At the University of Chicago you would be forced into a narrow framework of constant intellectual pursuit. At the University of Arizona you would be compelled into partying and socializing. These things are harmful when not balanced by the other. Here we are given the opportunity to cultivate both our intellectual and social skills. This University allows us to craft ourselves at any point along the spectrum and it encourages the balance that forms a holistic person.

Many kids at Harvard and Yale believe they are more naturally intelligent than public school students. The arrogance that inevitably consumes students at those schools lulls them into complacency and laziness. Why work hard when you already think you're the best? I work until fatigue because I know that there are thousands of more intelligent students.

Here we can develop an eternal and insatiable lust for knowledge. But beyond that, we learn the pragmatic applications of knowledge. We learn how to change the world by putting ideas into reality, rather than allowing them to rest idly in the realm of thoughts. The greatest thinker is nothing without the pragmatic skills to bring his ideas and creativity to the common man. Plato tells us this in his "Allegory of the Cave."

Here we can sharpen our social and emotional intelligences. Much success in the real world has to do with getting along with diverse people. Our unpretentious and easy-going nature allows us to fit into any social situation.

Here we have a sense of all corners of the world. People from all races, religions, geography and wealth converge upon us to enliven our understanding.

The intelligence of our peers can be intimidating. But they fear us too, and if they don't then they should, because we're coming. They fear our balance between the intellectual and the social. They fear our acute pragmatism and ability to implement ideas.

I don't care what we are told, we can compete with anybody. This University has given me the confidence to fear no opponent. We should invite the Ivy League challenge as the chance to prove ourselves. We must maintain our fighting faith even when confronted by challenges that appear insurmountable.

We suffer from a lack of confidence. Many of us who come here were rejected by Northwestern, University of Chicago or Yale. This admissions complex has reinforced the idea that we aren't quite as good. We must reclaim the spirit of "self-reliance" and trust Ralph Waldo Emerson when he wrote, "The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried."

Forget the admissions boards, because they don't know. But we will never know if we do not thrust ourselves upon the world with the belief that we have something to contribute to the procession of humanity. We must maintain confidence against continual assault that we alone decide our worth, not U.S. News and certainly not Harvard.

We should not be timid or arrogant - again a balance is called for. Lack of self-confidence is the only thing that prevents this University from permanently establishing itself as one of the greats. People tell us that we are second-rate and we have believed them. They are wrong. Run into the dark with confidence in the weapons you have forged here.

Billy Joe Mills is a graduating senior in LAS. He thanks his father, mother and friends for selfless help with his columns - farewell to the best friends a guy could hope for. He can be reached at opinions@dailyillini.com.