Robot Claw

The vast majority of my students are ‘juniors’ which is what we call 3rd years here in the US. Experienced students therefore; slightly more likely to focus on studies than other pursuits. One of them said yesterday that for various reasons she thought junior year would be her best year in college.

My original junior year was 1992. I was a ‘pure mathematics’ major then, in the thick of studies. Do I remember it as my best year? Do I remember it at all?

I found the above photo online, and it shows 4 University of Newcastle (UON) math department professors back in 1992. The occasion was to celebrate a $20,000 grant for new computer equipment. I had classes with the two in the right and possibly the second from left as well. I don’t recall the lessons at all, except that class sizes were small and I never found the work very challenging.

I don’t remember doing homework or taking exams. I don’t remember enrolling in classes or getting my grades. I don’t remember a single classmate and aside from an infamous nudist computer science professor I don’t really remember any of my instructors either. (Were it not for that photo I never would have remembered the guys that taught most of my classes!)

What I do recall from my university days are long bus rides, somewhat uncomfortable lectures (there was no AC in the classrooms), very inexpensive lunches at the campus center (sausage roll and a can of Coke) and many, many hours spent between classes in the library or computer rooms.

I don’t remember any strong feeling of studying toward a goal in those days. I would just attend classes (always math or linguistics, which I had bizarrely kept taking classes in) without much thought of why or what I wanted to ‘do’ with my life. A professor guided me toward an actuarial scholarship during 1992 which – after going to Sydney for qualifying exams – I was surprised to be offered before turning it down when I realized I wasn’t actually interested.

Of course 1992 was when KLS visited Australia, and while I hadn’t at the time decided I’d leave Australia I wonder if the seed had been planted?

My leisure time in those days was spent playing games (it still is…), hanging with friends and using the nascent internet. I had a big collection of friends in those days, many of which had cars or lived nearby so I was rarely without someone to bother 🙂

I also took advantage of student train fares to take frequent day trips to Sydney and have more vivid memories of them than I do of my daily university grind! I expect in those days I may have supposed my future lay in Sydney (there was a brief investigation into law school…) but I can’t recall thinking of what I’d do there.

By the end of 1992 I’d started the (hellish!) immigration process and turned my eyes to distant shores. For many this would have been a very stressful prospect, but I recall embracing it with the optimism I’ve gone through most of my life and as a result feeling even less pressured by school.

1992 in retrospect was a year in which I was lazily learning to be an adult without the associated challenges. My junior year and last full year at UON – and in Oz – was carefree, relaxing and overall one I hold fuzzy but warm memories of. I suppose I would have to say that yes, it was my best year of my first college career, and I suspect were I able to pop back and ask the me of ’92 how his life was going he’d say “Pretty good!”