On my drive back from class in Long Beach tonight (in a rare Southern California downpour), I got to thinking about my connections to UC Irvine. Jana and I met and married here as undergrads and had our first child here. I live and work on campus. Jana is a grad student (her department is in the complex next to my office) and teaches on campus. The Trader Joe’s, the Diedrich’s Coffee, the local farmer’s market and the little restaurants we frequent are right across the street and are always full of UCI students, staff, and faculty. A lot of my kids’ classmates are the children of professors and graduate students at UCI.
If I were a couple of scoops of coffee ice cream, UCI would be a cup of hot fudge poured all over me.
CSU Long Beach would be a maraschino cherry that fell down onto the side of the dish.
I love my classes and studies (and professors and classmates) in my Master’s program at Long Beach State, but I wish I could feel the connection there that I feel to UCI. Maybe my PhD will be more of a complete fudgy sundae experience.
5 responses so far ↓
1 pilgrimgirl // Apr 5, 2006 at 8:16 am
Except for the recent funding issues in my dept that I like to moan about, UCI is a great fit for my graduate studies.
Being on campus here is like being home. I know the areas of campus and how they change with the seasons. I have lived in almost every section of UCI’s many housing areas. I walk around campus and see dozens of familiar faces.
Rather than a hot fudge sundae (which I’m not partial to anyways), UCI is home-baked bread, just steaming as it’s been pulled out of the oven, and with butter and honey slathered on the crunchy heel portion. The touch, taste, smell and sight of this campus nourish me in body and spirit. It will be oh-so-hard when the time comes to leave.
2 Miko // Apr 5, 2006 at 4:07 pm
I think that undergraduates are like the country you were born: they really shape who you become as a post-collegiate person. In keeping with our food theme: my Alma Mater (we shall call her AMU, Alma Mater University) is to my current relationships like a Really Good Minestrone Stew. My husband & I ended up in the same bowl and we have friends from other universities who are Good, Crusty Bread and Parmegean Melted On The Top. Other friends are in other bowls, but having come from the AMU background, we’re all the same stew. I’m looking forward to a successful graduate career, but know that it’ll never quite be like AMU…
3 John // Apr 5, 2006 at 11:09 pm
Maybe Jana and I should think of our (budding) academic careers as the beginning of a long multiple course meal! (of course I had to start with dessert…)
4 Caroline // Apr 5, 2006 at 11:15 pm
To me, UCI is the sundae I am passively watching my friends sometimes relish, sometimes vomit up. Occassionally I get a tiny taste, but it’s not my dessert to eat.
I know what you mean about being disenchanted with your grad program. Not one of mine ever came close to comparing to my wonderful undergrad experience, yet every few years, I am driven to try again. Maybe next time it will be The One.
We missed you tonight at institute John. You always make the best comments, and our class is definitely the poorer without you. I am still hoping that by some miracle you and Jana will stay in Irvine forever
This class won’t be the same without you guys in a couple of years.
5 John // Apr 5, 2006 at 11:31 pm
Hey Caroline! I’m sorry (in several ways I’m sorry) I missed your lesson tonight–I even started the Torjeson When Women were Priests Book in preparation. But I’m so far behind in my readings that I have to make painful decisions until I get caught up. Jana tells me that it went very well. *sigh*
Maybe for us grad school experiences are like a string of less than perfect romances, until we find “the one”?
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