A key concept in health communication is the difference between disease and illness: disease refers to the physical manifestations of a condition, while illness encompasses the physical, emotional, social, communicative, and psychological experience of living with a condition. The individual illness experience takes into account the full story of patients with particular conditions, a biopsychosocial approach, and allows for the focus to be on patients rather than pathologies. Education in the college classroom about the full experience of illness and health is needed for numerous purposes. This article presents an assignment which addresses various issues by randomly assigning each student in a course to a particular illness. Random assignment is meant to simulate the existential nature of illness, a state placed before a patient who did not choose it and may feel a loss of control but must still cope with it. Each student will learn about the physical aspects of a condition, as well as its social, psychological, emotional, and communicative impacts, including daily stressors and experiences and interactions with healthcare providers. The research will culminate in five- to seven-minute oral illness reports, allowing students to grasp the multiple facets of an individual illness experience through their preparation and research. The students also will be exposed to information on multiple conditions through the other student presentations. A discussion following the presentations will debrief the students and allow exploration of various concepts surrounding the illness experience.