Brain-digging

There is a world of difference, as far as I can tell, between US and UK university experience. Doing some brain-digging, I think the language used in each country to describe the experience is revealing of the overall experience itself:


UK: "at university"
'At' refers to a place or a temporary stage of life--"I'm at work right now", or, "I'm at National and 1st street". The experience is temporary, transient, a one-way relationship. You can be 'at' something, but it can't be 'at' you.


US: "in college"
'In' is different--it refers to a physical placement as well, but the connotation is of enfolding, encircling, protecting--what you are 'in' has agency, in that *it* contains *you*. And it does contain--it becomes institutional, you are 'in', you can't just leave as if you were merely 'at'. But to be 'in' also implies entrance (exclusivity!) or membership--"I am *in*, they are out." And it comes with greater propriety and ownership: "I am *in* my house" versus "I am *at* home"."In college", you own it and it owns you, protects you, keeps others out but keeps you in. It is altogether a more infantile relationship than the autonomous "I am *at* university--I am here, for now, for my purposes. Tomorrow I may leave."


In the UK, most of the population goes to university, derailing its 'elitism', and schools themselves are government service institutions that are taken somewhat more for granted. The US does a better job of 'branding' and 'owning', one of the upsides of the common complaint that US schools are just businesses. Or is it an upside? It's been interesting speaking to Jason, who goes to Cornell--his freshman year has been absolutely harrowing, by the sounds of it, in terms of workload and expectations. I'm conflicted how to feel about this--I recognize the huge value of the leeway and free time or 'reading time' that St Andrews gives, but further structure and a comprehensive liberal arts agenda would actually probably have been more beneficial *for me*. The followup question, I guess, is about results: which of us winds up knowing more, or being able to think better? And how much of that can actually be attributed to whether or not we took a mandatory Writing 101 class?


One of the things I'm missing this summer is real academic interaction. I still read my blogs but it definitely is not the same--the lack of someone to have 'idea' talks with is dead depressing, and I can actually feel the scope of my thoughts shrinking. I've learnt a lot of specifics here, but the big-picture general stuff and the connections are lacking.