Arizona State University in Tempe
My good friend recently moved to Tempe, Arizona. The interesting aspect of this is that I met her while I was going to graduate school in Nebraska, which is where she is from. Oh, well, that might not be so interesting without the knowledge that I too currently live in Tempe, Arizona. In fact, Tempe is my hometown, which I’m proud to say. Anyone who can claim they are an Arizona native used to be extremely rare as there is such as high population of individuals and families that transplant their lives to Arizona from other states and sometimes nations. However, this has reduced its common status in the last couple of decades as more generations are being born here from parents that arrived from somewhere else. None the less, I am proud to call myself a native and I am proud to be from Tempe, Arizona.
I attended ASU for my undergraduate degree and loved my experience there. The university is one of the largest in the country and has diverse collection of expert and prestigious instructors and some of the greatest resources available for students. I could not think of a school I would rather have gone to for my BA. However, when it was time to go to graduate school I felt I should go somewhere else and chose the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln and received my MA in Renaissance literature with a focus on drama. I was a TA for one of the undergraduate classes and Tina, my friend who just moved here from Lincoln, was one of the students.
Tina, as it turns out was born in Lincoln, Nebraska and is one of those true red blooded Cornhuskers. I couldn’t help but get into the whole go big red thing but I am without question a Sun Devils fan. So, recently I read on Facebook that Tina was planning a move to Arizona. I wrote and asked her which city and she said she was moving to Tempe. I couldn’t believe it. I told her that I had moved back here after I graduated, she didn’t know I was from here, and just last week we met for coffee. Tina isn’t sure if she wants to go to graduate school at ASU, but she is considering it. She and her family had stayed in one of Tempe’s fine hotels and she decided she really loved the city. Right now she’s planning on getting a teaching certificate and is not sure what she’ll do in the future. This really is a small world.