I'm a little bit bummed out about an article that I read today in the news. I saw a story that talked about how a wealthy alumnus of a university in Illinois pledged one hundred million dollars to his alma mater upon his death. Unfortunately, this particular alumnus died, God rest his soul, and as a result, this school will soon be receiving this sizeable chunk of money. The reason that I'm so bummed out is that the school that is going to be receiving the money is both a not-so-great university, and it is a notable rival to the school that I currently attend. Yeah, maybe that's me just being a little bit jealous, but it still gets me thinking about the possibilities for schools getting funding like that. One hundred million dollars is an awfully lot of money to throw around. Just consider how much money you've got to have in reserve to be able to take care of all of your final responsibilities, leave some behind to your family, a charity or six, and then still be able to give that amount of money to your old school. I can only hope in my wildest dreams to be able to give a gift of that amount to my alma mater when I've finished up my schooling. I guess that it is probably out of question in the line of work that I am going to do. I'm not going to have the money of a civil engineer, a lawyer, or a brain surgeon. Sure, I'll probably make some good money after everything is said and done. Maybe I'll even be able to live comfortably on what I make after all my student loans from undergrad are paid off. That's a long way down the road though.

Is it bad to hope for someone to make a generous donation to my school so that graduate students like myself have a better chance to be funded for our education? I'm not even so worried about myself, at least not at this point, because I've been one of the very fortunate few who have been funded thus far in my graduate work. My fellowship has covered everything that I could possibly need both last year and in the coming academic year. I know however that there are many of my colleagues who continue to struggle to pay for their education due to lack of funding. They need to rely on student loans and their parents meager contributions in order to be able just to pay for school. On top of that, they can't devote themselves fully to their studies, because they need to constantly work whenever they have time in order to pay for a place to live and to be able to put food on the table. I think about all of my colleagues who have to do this, and I realize how truly blessed I have been thus far in my graduate school experience to have been funded how I have been. I wish I had the time and the energy to look into recruiting money for these people, but as Darwin has explained through his survival of the fittest, I really have to throw any altruistic feelings that I might have aside in order to make sure that I keep myself committed to keeping myself funded throughout my graduate school experience. The funny part is that there is money out there somewhere for graduate students. It just ends up in unlikely hands, kind of like this deal in Illinois. Some unsuspecting students are going to get a real treat when they learn that they will now be funded due to the generosity of this nice old man who wanted to give back to the school that apparently gave so much to him however many years ago. I hope that perhaps someday soon, my scholastic colleagues and I might have the good fortune to have our hard work come to some kind of financial fruition as we receive money from some unexpected source owing to the generosity of another thoughtful individual.