By Kyonna Jackson
Fall 2023
When coming into Oklahoma State University I didn’t know anything about the land-grant, so I figured it wasn’t important but my professors kept bringing it up and had us watch videos about it and now I’m sitting here doing a whole essay about it. I’m not going to sit here and act like I have knowledge about why us being land-grants is important, but I wouldn’t have known that the land-grant is the reason that I’m here.
Coming to Oklahoma State was never in my vision, to be honest I didn’t even know Oklahoma State University was a thing. True story actually, I always wanted to go to Arkansas State University, or Arkansas Tech University. I never saw myself in Oklahoma. The reasons being on why I wanted to go to those schools, because they have great Veterinarian courses in their university. It’s not like Oklahoma State because here they have the courses and a vet school that goes with it.
Arkansas does not have a vet school yet. I have an older sister that was in the air force. She went to University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff before she decided she wanted to go to the air force. She was stationed in South Carolina for two years, she was stationed all over but South Carolina was the longest place she had been stationed at. She soon began to get tired of the air force and left it and wanted to go back to school for her nursing major, her boyfriend was in the military and was stationed in Phoenix, Arizona and got medical discharged due to an injury in his ankle. Her boyfriend told her he always wanted to go to OKlahoma University since everything he wanted to major in was all in that university.
My sister was really picky and didn’t know where she wanted to go to school, so she ended up caving in and went to Oklahoma University with her boyfriend. My birthday is October twenty-ninth, so there are always things to do in October close to my birthday since it’s close to Halloween. My oldest sister invited me and told me that I could invite a group of friends over to her house since OU is having a Halloween party the night of my birthday. I was down because I mean it was going to be me and my friends first ever going to a college party, we would feel as if we were adults.
I was turning eighteen which was the allowable age limit to enter the party. It was getting closer to my birthday and it was football season of course. Back at home we were huge fans of our football team and dressed up for every home game. Since we was going to my sister house we had to skip one the games, and it was senior night for our senior boys it was hard for us to miss it, because we were the seniors of high school and not seeing our boys play their last home game made us a little sad but we was so excited to go to my sister house in Oklahoma and go to a college party. The time hit to go to my sister’s house I could never forget it was early October 28th on a Friday we left right after we got done with early morning basketball practice. We made it to her house around 2:30pm, we settled in the house and I started to look at our shirts that we ordered since it was a Halloween party of course that means costumes.
Me and my girls went as Bratz dolls, but I didn’t like the shirts that the woman made for us. A good thing Oklahoma City is huge and we found someone in the city that did our shirts for cheap, and really good. The next day was the night for the party we got up and we went to the mall to look and see if we were missing anything that goes with our costumes or did we want to buy extra makeup or something, we soon went back to the house to make sure we had everything we needed for the party. Later we just sat around the house doing things to keep us occupied so time could run down, the time hit at 9:00pm it was time to get ready for the party, we took a lot of photos, videos, and of course some tik tok videos. We all bundled up in my sister’s car and began the drive to the party. When we got there it wasn’t a lot of people there, you know when you are invited to a party like these you are supposed to come at a later time than too early.
We waited in the car until more people showed up. When we were chilling in the car we realized only two of my friends weren’t eighteen and couldn’t enter the party, so we scammed the ID people into thinking my friends were my other siblings at home. The thing about it was they weren’t scanning IDs, they were just looking at your age to see if you were the right age limit to enter the party. When we entered the party it was really loud and it was really crowded, my sister huddled us up and told us that if anyone asked we were from Langston University, or Oklahoma State University. We all said okay and began our fun. Hours went by and it was time to go. We had a really fun blast but we had to leave in the morning and had to go back to reality.
When we got back home my mother was talking to me and asked questions about how mothers are, then she asked me well do you know what college you want to go to and I told her either Arkansas State, or Arkansas Tech, she said okay well you need to get it and start on these scholarships. I soon applied to these schools and got accepted to both of them but one day I just wanted to look up Oklahoma State University and see what it’s all about. I soon learned that Oklahoma State had a whole Ferguson Agriculture College, I read more into it and realized how much time I would be saving if I went to Oklahoma State and after I got done with the pre-vet courses I could just apply to the one in Oklahoma when I was ready.
In 1862 Congress passed the first Morrill Act, this was the start of Land-Grant Universities opening all over the country. The first reason for these universities was to teach military tactics, agriculture, and the mechanical arts as well as classical studies for members of the working class so they could obtain a practical education (NASULGC). Learning about this fact in the land-grant mission is why Oklahoma State has a great known agriculture, this is what pulled me to attend Oklahoma State today.
I went on a tour in Oklahoma and realized yes this is the place I want to be. I applied to the school and got a letter in the mail stating that I got accepted to Oklahoma State University. I was so thrilled that I got accepted to Oklahoma State, I started to apply to a lot of scholarships, I did my FAFSA, and I got a scholarship from the university. Knowing that I wasn’t going to go to this university if my sister never went to Oklahoma University is wild, but I’m glad she went. I’m excited to say that I am a Cowgirl.
Being an African American girl at Oklahoma State can have its moments. Being in the Ferguson College of Agriculture is very challenging, a lot of students want to be veterinarians, and etc. I have always dreamed about being a veterinarian ever since I was at a young age. I feel like I have a connection when it comes to animals. The difference between me and these other students is that they have more hands-on experiences with these types of things. Some of them raised farm animals, were in FFA, or were showcasing animals. I never did those things. Yes, I was a girl from the country but I never had a farm but I did help my friend with her farm every once in a while. It’s also hard, when it’s time to apply to vet school they already said they admit more Oklahoma residents then non-residents. I didn’t like that so much, why couldn’t they just look at our applications and whoever they think best fit should be admitted; it shouldn’t be about where the person is from. Other than many things being an African American that attended Oklahoma State it’s really not that bad all you have to do is make sure you stay on top of your work, stay to yourself, and let the days roll day at a time.
When coming to Oklahoma State University, I had no clue what the land-grant was. Seeing how much the land-grant actually means something to us, and how we wouldn’t have been able to attend Oklahoma State without the land-grant shows me how important the land-grant is. Being more knowledgeable about the land-grant shows me that I now know when my teacher is talking about land-grant. I know what it stands for, how it became, and why it led me to Oklahoma State.
Work Cited
The Land-Grant Tradition. National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges, 2005.
archiveoklahoma.com 