If you attend the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, you might have seen this video circulating around social media. If you haven't, you still should.
It portrays one of the struggles that those who have to venture to upper campus from lower campus have to face: the dreaded hill of death. Hill of death might be dramatic, but not by much. It’s really as bad as it sounds. Let’s dissect the average experience that most students have with the hill.
1. The Start
In the beginning, the biggest emotion you feel is dread. You might possibly feel fear. As you approach the hill you can see its massive incline. Starting from the sidewalk by Putnam, you begin to feel the incline, and although you are scared, you start thinking, “Okay, I can do this!” The angle begins to increase, and you just barely begin to start breathing more heavily, but you can still breathe through your nose.
2. The Middle
The “Okay, I can do this!” mentality is long gone by the time you reach the halfway point. As you approach the slight curve in the hill, you are breathing more heavily. You might begin to pant or wheeze; this is a sign of weakness. You cannot show weakness to other college students, because college students are vultures. All of a sudden you panic because you are about to pass a college student breathing like a maniac. So you stop your mouth-breathing, which means you may stop breathing all together. If you pass a group, you have to hold it longer. The lack of oxygen starts to get to your brain, and you feel like you need to breathe, but you do not break! As you round the corner completely and finally begin to breathe again, you feel like you are so close to the end. And then you see it, the top… and you realize you still have so far to go.
3. The End
At this point you are sweating. You are sweating so much you know you will have to drink a gallon of water to replenish yourself. You feel as though you might not make it. You question why you even started going to this school. You consider stopping by the caf doors just to eat and rest. As you hike the final incline, you are no longer booking it. You have no energy. Your legs feel like Jell-o, and you try to push yourself just to make it to the end. You reach the top and try to cross the sidewalk, then nearly get hit by a campus vehicle because you are so delirious from your excursion.
At the beginning of the year you promise it is going to get better. You think you will build up muscles that will make it easier. But it never does. They tell you on school tours that it does, but they lie. Going down the hill is bad too. You either have to walk while taking extremely long, slow strides, or you have to stomp or run all the way down. In the winter, it is deadly. Many a time I have fallen down the hill due to slippery conditions. The best advice I have is to walk on the road in the winter because it is heated. But we can all agree that whether you are going up the hill or down it, it stinks.
