University can be quite big…

It wasn’t long ago that whilst walking down the sullen streets of my small hometown, I suddenly realised that a lot of universities are actually really quite big.

I was confused, baffled some say. I asked the linen merchant on the corner if he’d thought a similar thing, to which he replied something in Portuguese. Although I know the word for flannel is ‘flanela’, it wasn’t much help in this certain situation. I lingered on the premise that universities can be big, and decided to head home and do some research.

I’m quite tall if I’m honest, and small if I’m not, but after searching the world wide web, I couldn’t help but think otherwise. It just so happens, that pretty much every university is bigger than me, and not just the outside of it, but the interior too. Not only was this a seemingly revolutionary epiphany, it was immensely intimidating, as I myself shall be returning to my big university next September. Several things crossed my mind: Will I get lost? Can I ever be bigger than my university? Will the university take my lunch money? No. A university is an educational establishment, not ‘Big Tim’ from year three, I told myself externally, in turn waking up the cat.

So what? A university can be big. Others can be a little smaller than big, and some even bigger than big. That doesn’t mean that anything should change does it? It doesn’t mean that I should return to my degree fearing the very roofs that I labour under? Absolutely not. Universities need to be big in order to fit the varying sized students that attend inside, and lots of them!

I hope this helped. Thanks for listening.