As the year continues, college will be the subject of more and more conversations, especially amongst seniors.
Sometimes, though, these conversations can be hard to follow, what with the plethora of acronyms which students substitute for the longer-to-say, full university name. Obviously, U of I is faster and catchier to say than University of Illinois.
Nonetheless, there needs to be a limit to the abbreviations before it stocks up to plain laziness. This is especially true when talking to an underclassman, who may not be as well informed of college slang. Take the simple statement: “I really want to go to USC but ISU may be a more realistic option”. One might assume that USC is the University of Southern California, and take ISU as Illinois State University. However, USC could just as easily mean the University of South Carolina, and ISU might refer to Idaho State, or Iowa State University.
There is far too much vagueness involved in shortening University titles. While it may be a mouthful, it is so much nicer to just say the whole school name.
Gwen Kestler, Editor-in-Chief
