Every fall while in undergrad I loved that second Sunday in August. I loved taking 1604 past Randolph, then I-10 East past Woman Hollering Creek and Marion where the Ware pare live. I loved taking the back road down HW 90 to get to campus 3 ½ minutes faster than taking the 46 exit. I loved moving back into the dorms at TLU and getting everything set up. I loved trekking to Hein for that first meal of the semester and I loved walking to chapel and the auditorium for opening convocations. That first step onto TLU for the fall semester always held such excitement and potential for greatness.
Monday I drove to UTSA- took the frustrating 40 minute drive (due to traffic) down I-10West from Downtown. I turned onto UTSA Blvd past Costco, past Valero and staked out the parking spaces in the main lot. I walked the mile from the parking lot to the Starbucks through the concrete cement unattractive corridors and hot outside of the non-green UTSA campus. From Starbucks I walked another ¼ mile to my classroom probably a mile and a half from where I actually parked. There was no joy, no potential for greatness, just the unattractive and non-green campus of UTSA. I didn’t get that great “welcome home” feeling like I’d received at TLU.
While SAC started school last week and most of UTSA did as well, I was one of the lucky ones whose class did not start till this week. UTSA started on Wednesday last week and my classes are Monday-Tuesday- score me! Anyways so I took the summer off from grad school and loved it. It was so nice to have my Monday and Tuesday nights back and I didn’t miss the boring reading or paper writing or anything. So needless to say I was kinda not looking forward to going back to school. The two classes I was taking also sounded really boring Multicultural Issues in Higher Education and Program Planning and Evaluation. “Multicultural? I totally took a class just like that last year” and “I’m a freakin’ activities coordinator, why the hell do I need Program Planning?”. These were my attitudes. Luckily I was super pleasantly surprised. My Multicultural class should be much better than the last one and actually have to do with Student Affairs in Higher Ed- yay! And my Program Planning class has all my friends in it and my favorite Professor in my department, so it too should at least be entertaining. The syllabuses look totally doable, even though this year my work load has tripled for the fall and I will be traveling every weekend in October, and not as time consuming as last year. I’m super excited about my classes and getting to see my friends every week.
I’m excited about school but wish UTSA was prettier, friendlier and smaller.
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