Travels in the 2nd half

 As I wrote in my last post, I am a graduate of the City College of New York. And despite wondering what I missed by not going away to a large university, CCNY will always feel like home. I grew up in New York and have lived here my whole life, and City College really represents the New York I love. It is truly a cross section of the city. I started college in 1979 at The Cooper Union, a small, elite engineering/art/architecture college in Greenwich Village but I never really felt comfortable there. I quickly learned that while I loved studying chemistry, I really hated engineering courses. I also really didn’t fit in. The students were almost all white, suburban kids who viewed their studies as a fast path to a big paycheck. Even worse, Cooper Union is the first place that I had to deal with the casual racism that exists. . I grew up in the very integrated Upper West Side of Manhattan and in a family that celebrated diversity and actively fought against racism. I rem...

The Arch - Symbolic entrance to the UGa Campus I went to “urban” colleges. That is, the schools I attended did not have extensive campuses. They were built into the fabric of New York City. The Cooper Union consisted of three buildings in 1979, all placed along The Bowery at Cooper Square. My other college was The City College of New York. While it does have a campus that is 2 blocks wide by 7 blocks long, it is basically a commuter college, so there was never a great campus life. Also neither of my schools had “ big time athletics. Copper Union had no interscholastic sports, and City College competed in the City University of New York Athletic Conference which, truth be told, is at the bottom of Division 3. As a result I have always been fascinated by large universities. So I really enjoyed a chance to visit and spend a couple of days on the University of Georgia Campus in Athens GA. Gleason's Pictorial Drawing-Room Companion , 1851, pg 297 The first ma...