1. When you got to your school, you were a little worried it was going to be like School Daze...
...but it ended up being more like Hillman.
2. Though if you're a guy, you may have felt a little like this:
3. Women showed up to 8 a.m. classes in stilettos and perfectly styled.
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And yeah, dudes were killing it too.
Via streetetiquette.com
(See more at The Black Ivy)
4. Basically, everyone was gorgeous.
5. Sometimes you rocked school gear head to toe.
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6. And when Drizzy showed up, even he knew to come correct.
Anna Sumner / Via sensitive-bout-my-sh-photography.tumblr.com
7. Cliff Huxtable probably wore a shirt or a hat with your school's name on it.
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Xavier!
Fisk!
HU!
Savannah State!
8. And everyone on campus can rattle off the names of your alma mater's most influential alumni.
Lai Seng Sin / AP
Grambling
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Howard
Frazer Harrison / Getty Images
Morehouse
Andrew Kelly / Reuters
Tennessee State University
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Atlanta University (now Clark Atlanta University)
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Hampton
Yep, even this guy.
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Morehouse
9. History classes (and poli sci, and English, and music) were steeped in black history.
10. And you couldn't graduate without taking a swimming class.
Via troll.me
11. Though graduating on time was itself a miracle.
Via zazzle.com
12. Maybe because when it was time to buckle down for finals, the library felt a little bit like the club.
13. And sure, sometimes trying to get a copy of your transcript felt a little bit like running into this:
Or this.
14. And yes, you were used to seeing someone you knew leaving the financial aid office looking like this:
Or sometimes like this:
(Unless it was refund check time, in which case they looked more like this.)
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15. But you still dropped hundreds of dollars getting ready for homecoming week -- before even buying tickets to the events.
It was worth it.
16. And then you skipped your school's homecoming to go to Howard's...
17. ...where you quickly learned that the best part of the football game was the band.
View this video on YouTube
(And the drum majors.)
18. Everyone emerged outside on the first day of spring.
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And only fools went to class.
19. And when a friend dropped off the map during the spring semester, it was usually because they were trying to graduate. Or they were doing this.
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(figuratively speaking!)
20. If it was the latter, you then spent hours waiting for them to perform on the yard.
View this video on YouTube
21. And then that night, when you went to a party, no one could dance because the neophytes wouldn't stop strolling.
View this video on YouTube
No, really.
View this video on YouTube
Still going.
View this video on YouTube
But you've still never seen two Iotas at the same place at the same time.
22. You've never heard of Delta Zeta or TKE or Alpha Phi or Kappa Alpha or....
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But you can recite the names of the Divine 9 in order of their founding dates, even though you never pledged.
23. Every dorm had a dude who could cut hair, or a girl who could put in weave for cheap.
24. But eventually half the girls you knew went natural.
25. This was your face when someone tried to tell you going to an HBCU was self-segregating or racist.
26. Because you suddenly had friends from across the U.S., the Caribbean, Europe, and Africa.
27. Still, you got a job off-campus so you wouldn't forget what it was like to have white friends.
28. And when you went home to visit, your grandparents gave you a hard time about your decision to flout family tradition and go to Hampton instead of Howard.
Via siris-archives.si.edu!siarchives&uri=full=3100001~!245929~!0#focus
(Or NCA&T instead of FAMU. Or Bennett instead of Spelman. Or Cheyney instead of Lincoln.)
29. But, in spite of the rivalries with other schools, whenever you meet someone who went to an HBCU, you do this.
30. Because you both know that there's one thing you can agree on:
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