Digital Diaries Season 2 Episode 4: Kiss, Marry, Kill: Northwestern buildings edition

Anita Li, Assistant Audio Editor
January 29, 2023

On Season 2, Episode 4 of Digital Diaries, Northwestern students play Kiss, Marry, Kill with Northwestern buildings.

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ANITA LI: From The Daily Northwestern, I’m Anita Li. This is season two, episode four of Digital Diaries, a weekly podcast following the college experience and asking students a question about life at Northwestern.

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ANITA LI: This week, it’s game night! We’re playing Kiss, Marry, Kill: Northwestern buildings edition. To clarify, we’re not talking about what building we would literally put our lips on. It’s more about how we feel about these places on campus.

ANITA LI: Weinberg junior and former Daily staffer Sheena Tan has some fond and not-so-fond memories of Northwestern’s buildings, such as the McCormick Foundation Center.

SHEENA TAN: I would kiss MFC [Mccormick Foundation Center] because it’s designed in a very beautiful way. I would absolutely marry Willard Hall because I was in there with my roommate April Li, and it was an amazing experience. I love Fran’s. Willard is a home. It’s like white rice. It’s not always exciting, but you always have to have it.

ANITA LI: Tan would kill her freshman year dorm, Elder Hall.

SHEENA TAN: One of the showers kept on clogging, and it would overflow and flood the bedrooms across the hallway. It was really disgusting and we would just shower in our own filth. And like the water was just like, piling up. And there was mold on the pipes. It was a lot.

ANITA LI: The Northwestern University Technological Institute was another fan un-favorite for multiple students, including Weinberg freshman Isabella Seo.

ISABELLA SEO: I’ve gotten lost there. I’d get in the elevator, somehow I’m on the bottom floor. I’m like: “How did I get here?” So I’ll kill Tech, kiss Mudd. I’ll marry Kresge.

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ANITA LI: For Weinberg freshman Yahya Arastu, it’s what’s on the inside that counts. He likes the amenities of 560 Lincoln St., which is now called Schapiro Hall.

YAHYA ARASTU: The kiss one is hard. I would go with Lincoln. Just a very aesthetic building, they have the nice windows, lakeview and all that. Marry, I would say Main Library. There’s everything here, like plenty of study spots, great options for getting work done and you can spend a lot of time in here without getting bored. Main is pretty ugly from the outside, but I think the inside really brings the life to it, and I think it has a lot of personality.

ANITA LI: The Main Library that Arastu is referring to is more formally known as University Library.

ANITA LI: If University Library had a personality, what would it be like?

YAHYA ARASTU: Loyal, cozy, I’d say modest too, not too concerned about appearance and being flashy, but it’s like self-confident, it knows its worth.

ANITA LI: However, according to Arastu, some buildings on campus have run their course.

YAHYA ARASTU: Kill would be Norris. The inside is decent, but they really just need to upgrade it. They’re celebrating their fiftieth anniversary and stuff, but they just need to let it go.

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ANITA LI: Bienen and Communications sophomore Mya Vandegrift also thought about each building’s personality.

MYA VANDEGRIFT: I’m gonna kill Main Library, I don’t like it. Marry Deering [Library]. Beautiful, strong, stable. I feel like Deering and I would have a beautiful marriage and a beautiful wedding. I feel like it’s old money, so I would be taken care of and could be a comfortable stay-at-home mom.

ANITA LI: Vandegrift imagined her wedding with Deering Library to be very Northwestern-centric.

MYA VANDEGRIFT: We would be one of those really cringey couples that, like, takes their engagement photos at the Arch. I would be willing to do that for Deering. I think their parents definitely bought their spot here. I would be okay with that because they are beautiful and they are cultured and I believe that they are a good person. I think that we would probably get married in Alice Millar Chapel, that’s a beautiful space.

ANITA LI: Vandegrift said she would kiss the Kellogg Global Hub.

MYA VANDEGRIFT: It’s really shiny, it’s gorgeous, and maybe it would buy me dinner at a really nice restaurant.

ANITA LI: What makes you want to have a fling with Kellogg but not tie the knot?

MYA VANDEGRIFT: Kellogg gives finance bro. It’s not that I wouldn’t want to tie the knot with Kellogg, it’s that Kellogg would not want to tie the knot with me. Okay, listen, I’m designing my own degree in Bienen School of Music. If Kellogg and I tied the knot, I would be like their artist that lives in the attic and comes down for parties but other than that, I’m just there.

ANITA LI: Like that wife from “Jane Eyre”?

MYA VANDEGRIFT: Yeah.

ANITA LI: Vandegrift also described a date between her and Kellogg.

MYA VANDEGRIFT: Somewhere expensive with steak and, like, wine and they mansplain wine to me and I sniff it and say something semi-intelligent.

ANITA LI: What would that semi-intelligent thing be?

MYA VANDEGRIFT: Yeah, no, the undertones, the layers in this – what year did you say this was from? 2018, interesting … you know, I think I’ve had better 2020s than this. Oh, this is your favorite? Oh, no, no, no, I didn’t mean to offend, I just did a workaway on a wine farm in south Italy, no, you weren’t mansplaining, it’s okay, it’s okay, oh you’re getting the check? Oh, you feel bad so you’re getting the check? Oh, it’s okay.

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ANITA LI: From The Daily Northwestern, I’m Anita Li. Thanks for listening to another episode of Digital Diaries. This episode was reported and produced by me. The audio editor of The Daily Northwestern is Erica Schmitt, the digital managing editors are Joanne Haner and Olatunji Osho-Williams, and the editor in chief is Alex Perry. Make sure to subscribe to The Daily Northwestern’s podcasts on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or SoundCloud to hear more episodes like this.

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