Ezra and Holly Thompson

We’re Ezra and Holly, graduates of the OU Class of 2018. On the weekend before school began our freshman year, we met in Walker tower, where we both lived on the 10th floor. Four years later, we took our wedding photos outside that very tower. Not long before we met, though, we were doing many of the same things you may be doing now: preparing to graduate from high school, deciding where to go to college, and contemplating our futures.

College was going to be a big change for both of us. Holly grew up on a farm in rural Iowa. When she was considering OU, she was nervous about leaving her tight-knit family, friends, and community for a place where she knew no one. She wanted to find a place that would be a second home. Ezra grew up in Cleveland and didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life. He wanted a place where he could figure that out while surrounded by friends, mentors, and professors who would guide and encourage him. We both wanted to expand our horizons, to travel and gain global perspectives, and to meet people with different backgrounds who would challenge the way we looked at the world. We’re happy to let you know that we found all that and more at the University of Oklahoma.

Here are just a few highlights of our time at OU:

• Meeting our best friends (and half our bridal party) and traveling around the country to visit their hometowns and families
• Picking our majors (and changing them three times - Holly)
• Breaking the Guinness World Record for the longest hug in the Oklahoma Memorial Union (Ezra)
• Studying abroad for a year in Italy (Ezra), a semester in Ecuador (Holly), and month in Tanzania (Holly)
• Finding out we got into grad school (Ezra, UCLA math Ph.D.), got the Fulbright award in Mexico (Holly), and got a full-time job offer with Bain & Company, a top-tier management consulting firm (Holly)
• Cheering until we lost our voices while watching the nationally ranked Sooner football team every Saturday in the fall
• Dancing the night away at our wedding reception at the Jimmie Austin OU Golf Club on campus

We can’t promise that your journey will look exactly like ours, nor should it. The interests and passions you have are uniquely yours, and the next steps you take will be unique to you as well. What we can promise is that whatever it is you’re seeking, you can find it at the University of Oklahoma; it is a place where remarkable people gather to grow and learn together.

We wish you the best with everything that lies ahead!

Boomer Sooner!