Univ Reunion

On Thursday 28th Sept, my university (the University of East Anglia)  was having a pub reunion day. So in every city throughout the world where there were Alums, people arranged to get together. The New York one was very small, about 12 people as well as 2 development people from UEA, and was held upstairs in a Midtown Irish bar.

Now, I graduated in 1977, which as explained earlier isn't that long ago in my opinion, but everyone else had silly graduation dates like 2001 - there was even one that had 2007. Really, 2007? Anyway I digress (see earlier post). It was quite strange in that I remember a small almost intimate university with about 3,000 students but the current UEA is a very different beast, and realistically one much more suited for today. The University system has evolved into something much more like the current American system, with fees, league tables and competition for any and all students. There are many more universities now and as in the US there are good ones and less good ones.

UEA is in the top 10 of the league table, has about 13,000 fulltime students and has the biggest....., well I'm not sure what it has the biggest of because I stopped listening because someone bought me a drink. It has added a medical school, a business school, a pharmacy school, a nursing school, a law school and many more. It also has a large art collection and state of the art museum. Defintiely not the place I remember which had 5 schools covering the basics including CMP (Computing Studies, my school which still exists) a library, a sports complex and a bar. To be fair that was my world but there may have been more.

Anyway I was very pleased to have gone to the event. I am looking forward to next year's event and I expect the letters asking me for money to start at any time. The price of progress I suppose.