[Esther] On October 28th, 2025 the UIS Learning Hub hosted an event under the Brookens Overhang, “Make your own Study Buddy”, a faux pet rock, complete with a carrier, certificate of adoption, and many craft supplies to style your buddy as needed.
[Esther] This ingenious igneous enterprise comes from the idea of Rubber Duck Debugging. Let’s say you’re working on a difficult project, and come up against an issue that has you stumped. Talking to your study buddy lets you understand the issue better, and helps you get around the roadblock, without becoming part of the rockslide.
[Esther] But whether or not you use it as advertised, the real appeal of an event like this is to get UIS students out of the house, and to have fun working on a silly project together.
[Esther] What was your favorite part of this event, any takeaways?
[Logan Iott] Um, being able to be creative and make a rock. It was pretty fun to do with my friends, yeah.
[Esther] Of course, it’s thanks to the Learning Hub that this event was put on. They had several people stationed to welcome and help students assemble something special.
[Esther] What went behind creating this event, like the inspiration?
[Sarah Collins] So we tend to have a theme every year that helps us sort of dedicate our services and things in particular ways, and this year we decided rocks were our theme, for silly reasons, and so it came to mind pretty quickly, like, “oh we could like, let people make their own little study friend by designing a pet rock” to kind of fit with our theme, and that we provide learning support for students, so it just kind of fit, it just kind of came together naturally.
[Esther] This has been Esther from the UIS Observer. A study buddy you cannot take for granite.
