The University at Albany. It sounds like such a prestigous place, eventhough the reality seems to reflect it as being something less then my dreams. I am really excited about getting a chance to go there, but also have an uneasy feeling about the massive concrete campus that is home to three times more people then the 65 square miles that make up my hometown.

The campus tour seemed to make me think about the mass lonelyness that must exist in this great concerete beast and the bureacracy and red tape behind it. Maybe it will be different when I start going there and get to know the many communities that exist in the face of mass society and bureaucratic oppression of the supersized university. At least this massive beast of a University is close to my hometown and I will be able to escape to the freedom of the wilderness that surrounds my neighboorhood.

A Campus Beyond It's Times

The pictures of the University makes it look far nicer then it is in reality. Walking around the campus you are swept away by 1960s beauty that has been vandalize and destroyed by careless students over the years. Neglect of this concrete beauty has made it fall apart and become destroyed. Some mountaintops are more beautiful then your first impressions, so it makes sense to look deeper. My fear is that my experience on campus will not be much different then what I see from my first impressions. I tend to associate such neglence with that of overprivledged liberal brats that complain but do little change our society.

Having gone to Hudson Valley Community College for several years, I have experienced several individuals like that. Hudson Valley always had a working class consituency to fall on back to when liberals took things in the wrong way. Conservatives on college tend to be libertarians who want some pot and not be socially conservative. Maybe some of this fear comes from my hate of change. It might be autistic to oppose change, but I find change unravels me as an individual and exposes me to a world of unknowns. I know I will quickly aclimate to this environment and how to change my social constructed version of reality to be applicable to this campus. Yet, I will have my connection to my community and Iw ill be able to escape back to my world.

Onwards and Upwards

It's a big step up for me. Completing my BA degree will mean I'll be ready for graduate school or somekind of entry-level employement, that will help me on my way. It's far bigger and better then HVCC, it will probably anwser my question far better. It's nearer to Partridge Run. Get out after class, and I have no other work to do, and have my car, it's off to Partridge Run. Sking, hiking, hanging out, whatever. Just get away, to the greatest place on earth. I'll have my car, I will be moble. Go out and do lots of different things.

Whatever bad I can say about the campus, it is my future. Going to a mass University is troubling to me, but the connection to home is so important. It's pretty cool looking campus, particularly when the weather is nice, but it's far from it's orginal design or the learning it orginally attempted to inspire.