My university, although huge, appears to be composed of nothing but buildings, walls, and people.  Plain and dead.

When I was in high school, I looked forward to college as something enchanting and full of inspirational energy and magic.  I got here and it wasn’t that way after all.  There’s nothing but people and walls.  People are plain, and buildings are plain.

I had to remind myself what a college is.  It’s a place of learning.  So, among the people and the buildings, I had to start looking at what the people were doing.  People were looking at notes, looking at books, and looking at their laptops.  All of these things were filled with text and images.  Seeing these things, filled with text and images, was proof that these things are going through the minds of the people here.  I began to imagine all of the cranks that were constantly turning in each individual person I see here who is looking at such notes or books or laptops.

In this way, I found the energy and enchantment that I had thought would be here - the academic substance perpetually traveling through minds. It’s not something you can actually hear or see.  It’s something you conjure up once you know it’s there.  The text and the photos and the information going in and out of minds are what’s alive about this college.