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By Alli Geiger
This year I had the privilege of being a Top 20 Candidate for Homecoming at the University of Louisville. During the interview process, I was asked “what does being an alumni mean to you?” This question took me by complete surprise, and while I did give a brief response, I find myself thinking more and more about what my answer is the closer I get to becoming one. When I graduate in the spring, several of the large pillars in my life are never going to be the same. I will no longer be an undergraduate at the University of Louisville, no longer a scholar at the McConnell Center, and no longer an active member in Kappa Delta - three things that distinctly make up who I am.
When I am no longer a student, I will not get to spend every single day with my best friends. We will not be doing homework together and stay up until the small hours in the morning because our apartments are just a block away. I will not have favorite professors who have office hours I go to asking for help, advice, or chats. I will not be at the football games in the student section screaming at the top of my lungs.
There will no longer be seminars every week where I get to stretch my brain and learn something new. I will not have the privilege to meet impressive political and military figures. Ms. Sherry will not be a short walk away, ready to solve all of my problems. I will not have the incredible intellectual community right at my fingertips which I have been spoiled to have in the McConnell Center.
I will no longer eat, sleep, and breathe the girlhood of which I have been a part of in Kappa Delta. No more weekly chapter meetings, sisterhood events, or activities. But even though I am no longer going to have to recite Kappa Delta’s values during recruitment or events, it is those values that helped me come to my answer about what it means to be an alumni.
The sorority’s values are friendship & loyalty, personal integrity, lifelong learning, and selfless service. Being in Kappa Delta and these organizations has taught me that the bonds I have created here will last a lifetime. Being an alumni is holding on to those traditions and staying loyal to the people surrounding them. Here at UofL, I have learned who I am as a person, and as an alumni I owe it to these organizations to remain true to myself afterwards.
I know that my journey does not end as an alumni, it begins. UofL, the McConnell Center, and Kappa Delta have set me on a path of lifelong learning where I will continue to grow each day. So even though I am about to experience a lot of change, more so than I ever have in my life, it will not be as scary as I thought. For I will be an alumni, which means I will always carry these parts of me wherever I go for the rest of my life.
Alli Geiger is a McConnell Scholar in the class of 2026. She is studying English, political science, and Arabic at the University of Louisville.