A lot happens in 25 years. Twenty-five years ago, a large chunk of NIU’s student body wasn’t born. In 2000, the most played song was Faith Hill’s “Breathe,” President Bill Clinton was in the Oval Office and the world was still mildly high from surviving the turn of the millennium. 

Twenty-five years is a quarter of a century, 9,125 days rich with change: Weddings, funerals, birthdays, first loves, graduations, new friendships and best days ever. 

At 4 p.m. on April 16, the Northern Star will travel back 25 years, open a time capsule locked away since 2000 and seal it back up with our own gifts to the future. I feel so lucky to be a part of the Star for this moment because a time capsule is an enchanting tradition. 

There is so much exquisite nostalgia that comes with opening a time capsule. 

Romantic and sentimental all at once, a time capsule embodies the tender smell of an antique store filled with someone’s favorite things or the yellowing edges of a photograph, taken and saved for love. 

It’s a message in a bottle, tossed into a sea of daily life and forgotten until now: Washing to shore 25 years later to continue the perfect tradition. 

The Northern Star is still deciding what will go in the time capsule to hide away until 2050, but some necessary items seem obvious. 

We’ll definitely need something to represent this time’s relationship with social media, maybe a print-out of a delightfully stupid meme or TikTok trend we’ve bonded over in the past year. 

We’ll need something to represent NIU students today, such as photos from the Holmes Student Center or Huskie merchandise. 

We’ll need something to represent this year’s pop-culture icons, of music, movies, fashion and more – though choosing a few small items to encompass those categories will undoubtedly require some debate.  

We might need something to represent the COVID-19 pandemic, which – while now five years past –  was still a historical event like no other in the past century and continues to impact how we approach school, workplaces and politics. 

And we’ll need something natural to represent fleeting but timeless beauties, maybe a pressed daffodil or a leaf from East Lagoon. Or, more appropriately, does anyone have a goose feather – ethically sourced – they can donate? 

If you have any suggestions for what the time capsule should include, please share! You represent 2025 too. You can send an email to editor@northernstar.info by April 7 indicating the item you would like to include.

Whatever goes in will shape our secret love letter to another time and to incredible people who haven’t yet come to be.

And 25 years from now, what world will those people be living in? For all the advancements and changes of 2025, Generation Z is a nostalgic group – fascinated by older technologies and stories. Will 2050 be fascinated with us?

Will they understand any inside jokes we lock in the capsule or marvel at how different life was in the 2020s? Will they order a similar lunch in the HSC, study in the same corner of the library or watch the same maple trees change color in the fall?

Twenty-five years from now, will whoever opens our buried treasure wonder how we felt putting this time capsule together? 

I hope so. I hope the excitement they feel is just as dreamy as it is for us. For all that changes in 25 years, I hope human fascination with the past – the urge to preserve and share even the small things that once made someone happy – stays the same.