University of Chicago a good fit for me?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Chicago ✅
1

<p>Hi,</p>

<p>So I posted a question under the general forum describing myself, listing out many colleges, and asking which one/ones were the best fit. After doing that, I realized that it's probably not the best way to get the specific feedback I want about each of the colleges on my list. Therefore, I'm posting under each individual college that I'm looking at and am asking for people affiliated with that college to assess my fit for that particular college.</p>

<p>Firstly, here is some information about myself:</p>

<p>I'm a current Junior who has begun the college search and would like some advice with regards to each college's fit for me. I'm a student who is looking for a top college which excels at math or science. I'm looking at colleges within both the US and England (which is where I'm from originally) and want small to medium sized college (preferably under 20,000 students). Also, the area I want to specialize most in is theoretical math (the sub-area I think I might want to specialize in is real/complex analysis). Therefore, I want a university with great theoretical mathematics options and a theoretical emphasis. Preferably I'd like to have some good humanities offerings (possibly getting a minor in philosophy), but I want my main focus to be in the math and science areas (maybe spending around 2/3 of my time in math & science and 1/3 in everything else). My eventual goal is to go to graduate school, get a PhD in mathematics and become a math professor. Therefore, I'd like a college which gives lots of research opportunities to undergrads and has a great math grad. program, so that I can begin research and graduate level courses as an undergrad.</p>

<p>I wanted to say some things that I like about the University of Chicago and some things which I'm slightly concerned about:</p>

<p>Likes: </p>

<p>I know that University of Chicago has a wonderful math department and many students who major in math. I've perused the course offerings and like the sound of both the Honors Calculus Sequence (16100-16200-16300) and the Honors Analysis in Rn Sequence (20700-20800-20900). I also really like the quarter system which University of Chicago has and the discussion based seminars/classes which sound great (as I love the discussion based format). </p>

<p>Concerns: </p>

<p>I have two main concerns about University of Chicago: </p>

<p>1) Not enough emphasis on math/science- I really want to go extremely deep into math/science and know that University of Chicago does subscribe to a more liberal arts philosophy. I visited Harvard and found that it didn't seem like a great fit for me precisely because it was too liberal arts oriented which wasn't really what I was looking for. Therefore, I'm concerned that the University of Chicago is similar with respect to the liberal arts orientation. </p>

<p>2) Safety- I've read a lot of things that say that the area surrounding the University of Chicago campus is very unsafe, and you have to be extremely careful. How much of a concern is this in actuality? I don't want to live somewhere for 4 years where I'm constantly having to be extremely wary of safety everywhere that I go. </p>

<p>Therefore, it would be great if people could respond to my concerns and with regards to whether I seem like a good fit for the University of Chicago. It's very hard to assess without actually visiting, so I'd really appreciate it if those who are familiar with the university could give me some more information. I'm also happy to provide more information about myself if anybody feels like it would be helpful in giving an accurate assessment. </p>

<p>Thanks so much in advance!</p>

2

<p>Current UChicago student interested in Physics/Math here. The Math program is definitely top 5 in the country and possibly the world. However, you need to be fully aware of how much time is taken up by the core. You will have to take a large amount of classes that have absolutely nothing to do with math, and you might have trouble justifying spending a large portion of your time on these subjects since you are already set with your future plans. I am personally slightly irritated that I must put off upper level Math/Phys courses to analyze ancient literature. Furthermore, Chicago is much more focused on the liberal arts than Harvard, so if you cant stand Harvard you probably cant stand Chicago. If you are serious about pursuing Math I would choose MIT/Caltech/Cambridge.</p>

<p>Regarding safety, being on campus is perfectly safe. I’ve walked around at midnight feeling completely safe. There are also security guards that stand on street corners all night(around campus).</p>

<p>Personally, I would recommend Cambridge since I hear you do nothing but math for 3 years.</p>

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<p>Hi @UCStudent1‌ </p>

<p>Thank you so much for your response; it really gives me a lot more insight into University of Chicago in terms of thinking about whether it is or isn’t the right choice. I wasn’t aware of the extent to which University of Chicago is focused on liberal arts, so it’s extremely helpful to know that. </p>

<p>Thanks once again, and I’ll be sure to repost if I happen to have any more questions about UChicago!</p>

4

<p>Adding my two cents here, mainly just to vote with UCStudent1. If Harvard seems too liberal-arts focused to you, so will Chicago. So, pretty much, will every elite US university except Caltech. Most colleges will require you to take the equivalent of a year’s worth of courses in a variety of fields outside your major area of interest. MIT definitely has a required liberal arts curriculum, although it is less extensive than Harvard’s or Chicago’s. </p>

<p>You may want to consider Brown, whose math faculty is not quite on the same level as Chicagos, but is plenty good enough to keep you from getting bored, and to help you on your way to a top graduate program. Brown has no required courses whatsoever. If you never want to take a liberal arts class, you won’t have to. Some other colleges (but not Harvard or Chicago or, I believe, MIT) will let you out of liberal arts requirements if you have good enough scores on the applicable AP or IB tests.</p>

<p>Also, if you want to stay on this side of the Atlantic, I believe the Canadian universities, which include top ones such as Toronto, Waterloo, and McGill, have minimal or no general education requirements outside your major.</p>

<p>Also: Safety at Chicago is not more of a concern than it would be at any other university in an urban area. It shouldn’t dominate your life, or even come close. There is a very limited number of places where safety is not a realistic concern at all – I would say Caltech, Stanford, Princeton, among math powerhouses. Yes, Cambridge, too.</p>

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<p>Looing at specific colleges at oxford/Cambridge might make sense. I disagree with JHS about safety: it is more of an issue than other places. I grew up there, I visit there, my parents live there. While waiting for my son (visiting the campus this summer) a posting in the library cited two separate armed robberies in broad daylight a few blocks from the campus. My uncle was savagely assaulted in broad daylight four blocks from the U of C campus. Safety is a very real issue and cannot be glossed over. The U of C has a visible campus security system and takes the safety of its students and faculty seriously–but it’s a consideration. I feel more secure around Columbia and Harvard, no question.</p>

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<p>My daughter just started her 1st year at UChicago. After visiting the campus last winter and again dropping her off last week, I had no reservations about safety concerns – at least, no more than any other urban university in the U.S.</p>

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<p>Sorry to get off topic, but DGDzDad I remember when you and your daughter were visiting and deciding. Now that you are there, I hope your daughter has a great experience. </p>

<p>Regarding safety, I was just in Hyde Park this past weekend. We walked to Powell’s bookstore kind of late, after dark. We (3 of us) walked kind of the back way. I never felt unsafe and I am a veteran of living in urban centers. I think it would prudent not to walk alone too late however. Although the residential areas around campus (North and East) are really pretty nice, you never know who might be driving by. The campus itself is very safe.</p>

<p>For the OP. You are asking the right questions. I hope you get a chance to visit and perhaps sit in on classes, talk to students and profs.</p>

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<p>zzzmmm: You feel more secure around Harvard and Columbia, no question, but I believe if you check you’ll find that the incidence of street crime is about the same – maybe, in fact, heaviest at Harvard. None of them is as placid as a thoroughly suburban campus like Princeton, but there is no reason for students to live in fear at Chicago. At one point, one of my kids had a 4:30 am radio show, and had no trouble walking from one end of the campus to the other to get there, alone, for a couple of quarters. </p>

<p>If you compare it to Princeton or Williamstown, sure, it seems more dangerous. But it’s not so much more dangerous that it’s actually dangerous. In terms of stats, it compares favorably with neighborhoods near the one where I live now, and which are generally considered safe. As everywhere, students at Chicago have a lot more to fear from other students – petty theft, alcohol related problems, drug crimes, sexual assault – than they do from the surrounding community.</p>

<p>No one should go to Chicago if sharing the street and public transportation with some low-income people of color is going to freak them out and make them perpetually anxious. But most people aren’t like that, or they get over it quickly.</p>

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<p>Following up on JHS comments, that same night we walked to Powell’s (see post #6) we stopped at Treasure Island Foods. What a great store! Observing the variety of people (ages, races, income levels)–moving, interacting, and relating in and around the store, easily and without any special notice–it struck me that when everywhere else is like this, our country will be closer to the best it can be. </p>

<p>At one point I asked my son about safety in Hyde Park. He just said something to the effect that you will only feel uncomfortable around the area if you can’t get used to different kinds of people. He said it better than that, but I think I captured the essence. </p>

<p>The next morning we went to Valois Cafeteria and had the best $5 breakfast anywhere in the universe. </p>

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<p>First, my oldest daughter goes to UChicago and I think it is an excellent university. I have never worried about her personal safety on campus, and after looking at many urban campuses in the US, I think all of them are pretty safe and not appreciably different (as far as safety goes) from one another. If you’re comfortable in an urban setting then I think Chicago is a great place to go to college.</p>

<p>UChicago has many excellent departments and I understand the math department is top ranked. I would think that a person who is interested in math would be challenged there. However as another poster mentioned, the Core does take a considerable amount of time to complete and if all you want to study is math and science then you might not enjoy all the time you have to put in to fulfill the Core. If you want more of a math/science focus then MIT might be a good school to consider. MIT is not without requirements – all students have to fulfill a basic set of math and science courses plus 8 humanities courses. However, the definition of “humanities” there is quite broad – for example economics, music, philosophy, etc… all quality, so there are plenty of quantitative type courses that can be used to fulfill a good portion of this requirement. One can argue that all these quantitative courses don’t produce the most well rounded students, but if math and science is your thing, then I would recommend you take a serious look at MIT. </p>

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<p>JHS, I doubt that the incidence of street crime near Harvard, at least (I can’t speak for Columbia), is about the same as for UChicago. I think there is probably less around Harvard. I remember being puzzled a few years back that Harvard and Tufts ranked so poorly on the government index of campus safety. I think they were both among the five worst campuses (while UChicago was somewhere in the mid-30s). I live very close to both Harvard and Tufts, and this seemed absurd. When I looked into it, it turned out that Tufts’ ranking was skewed because they also included the medical/dental campus in downtown Boston, and Harvard’s was bad because of abysmal student sexual assault numbers–not street crime. (Although it was particularly low at that time because of a recent dorm homicide of a non-student drug dealer who was living in the dorm with his girlfriend.)</p>

<p>Previously, I’ve posted on this board a data map from the New York Times that showed Hyde Park to be MUCH safer than surrounding areas (e.g. Woodlawn), and I believe that is true, perhaps largely because of the UChicago campus police presence. But I still seriously doubt it is as safe in terms of street crime than Harvard Square. I’ve followed the Chicago PD’s crime maps of the area from time to time, but nothing similar for Harvard Square.</p>

<p>On a related matter, you’ve frequently repeated the claim that no one should go to UChicago “… if sharing the streets with some low income people of color is going to freak them out.” This is certainly true, of course, though beside the point. And it seems to me that you use it in a very defensive and troubling way, as if to minimize any fears anyone might have about safety around UChicago, or as if to belittle such fears as little more than racism or bigotry. People can have legitimate concerns about safety at UChicago, and should certainly be able to discuss them without the condescending hint that their concerns might turn out to be little more than bigotry. I really value your very informative posts about UChicago, but this recurring remark feels like it is intended to foreclose discussion rather than to expand it.</p>

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<p>rimmail – 1. I haven’t seen numbers, either, but there is a lot of street crime around Harvard. Harvard absolutely looks and feels safer than the University of Chicago, and I think that both are within perfectly acceptable norms – I am not claiming that Harvard is some sort of hellhole – but I think Harvard gets a lot of free pass on how it looks.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>I am sorry, but in my experience, most people at the University of Chicago feel reasonably safe and able to negotiate Hyde Park, but some people never lose their anxiety about crime there. And for that group of people, which is a small minority, some degree of racism is a huge factor. I wouldn’t want to condemn even an unconscious racist to have to live in fear all the time, and to be afraid of walking outside – someone who cannot get over that is not going to feel comfortable in Hyde Park, ever. I think most people know themselves well enough that they can recognize that in themselves or not. I don’t want to tell those people, oh, it’s fine there, don’t worry, because it isn’t going to be fine for them.</p></li>
<li><p>No urban university – not Harvard, not Yale, not Brown, not Columbia, not Penn, not Hopkins, not Georgetown or GW, not BU, not Tufts, not USC, not UCLA, not Berkeley, and not Chicago or Northwestern – is free from petty street crime, and at higher levels than you would see at Stanford or Dartmouth. That’s pretty much a fact of life. It’s also a fact that it doesn’t make that much of a difference in the lives of most students, and that dangers students face from other students pretty much completely overwhelm the dangers they face from muggers and bike thieves.</p></li>
</ol>

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<p>JHS,
On point 1, I agree that Harvard probably looks safer than it is, but it’s still quite safe. I worked in Harvard square for a couple years, lived there for three years, and have lived (and frequently also worked) within three miles of there for over 20 years, and I can say with some assurance that it’s pretty darn safe. And I also agree with you that Hyde Park is also within “perfectly acceptable norms” whatever that means.</p>

<p>On point 2, you write:</p>

<p>“I am sorry, but in my experience, most people at the University of Chicago feel reasonably safe and able to negotiate Hyde Park, but some people never lose their anxiety about crime there. And for that group of people, which is a small minority, some degree of racism is a huge factor.”</p>

<p>Can you see how you here adopt a perspective of unjustified <em>omniscience</em> about the inner workings of other people? What if someone was traumatized in a street crime incident? What if they merely have a fear of being mugged (but are not the least bit xenophobic)? How do you just <em>know</em> that for the entire minority of people who have concerns about crime at UChicago “racism is a huge factor”?</p>

<p>We actually have a fair amount of first-hand experience on this issue, as we have a (now adult) foster son, who was an African refugee that came to live with us in 2001. Even in places like Northern Maine, we never saw people “freaking out” at the sight of a minority. Quizzical or curious looks, sure. Disapproving looks? Alas, sometimes (not least in ultra-liberal locales like Harvard Square). But distressed, “freaked-out” looks? Please. I think it’s safe to say that our family is not xenophobic, yet I still have some reasonable concerns about safety around UChicago. I wish my son who lives in North Woodlawn had a little more concern than he sometimes appears to, but to the extent that he does have healthy concerns about his surroundings, it’s hardly because he’s xenophobic.</p>

<p>I certainly agree with you that xenophobes are not likely to feel comfortable at UChicago (though perhaps they are unlikely to feel comfortable anywhere). But when you trot this line out whenever someone raises a concern about safety there, you basically change the subject from “Is the area safe?” to “What kind of a student will feel good at UChicago?” or worse “You’re not a xeonophobe, are you?” I admire your enthusiasm for UChicago, and I’ve loved the place intensely for decades. But it feels to me like your tactics are unfairly changing the subject and impugning someone who likely has a legitimate, or at least innocent, concern.</p>

<p>On point 3, I basically agree with everything you say, except that–again–the question was not the banal and easy one of “Is there any urban university that is free from petty street crime?” But rather a much less obvious one like “Is there reason for concern that UChicago might have more street crime (some of it perhaps not so petty) than other urban universities?” Your answer is true, but it’s also subject-changing and hence question-begging.</p>

<p>Again, I want to say that I greatly appreciate your enthusiastic and informed commentary on UChicago, but I find this particular response to queries about safety to be off-putting.</p>

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<p>@rlmmail‌ </p>

<p>JHS’s phrasing (though I would never want to put words in another’s mouth) doesn’t necessarily have to be parsed as “every single person who is afraid in Hyde Park is so, in a large part, because of racism”. Rather, and quite reasonably, one could simply parse it as meaning that of the various concerns that cause this small minority to be afraid, one of the most prevalent is racism (conscious or not). That doesn’t seem to be much of a stretch to me. </p>

<p>The anecdote about your foster son seems like a bit of a strange straw man to me, and gets at something that I think about a lot with respect to internalized racism/fear. I always would have said I was very tolerant and not racist at all in High school when I lived in a overwhelmingly white suburb of a major city, and went to an overwhelmingly white high quality high school. That was because the few black people I knew were those who came from families that had been able to invest time, energy, and money in getting their kid to my school. These were the ones who survived despite deeply ingrained discrimination throughout our society. That was an easy and false tolerance. It’s been a lot harder in Hyde Park, where I actually have to deal with people who aren’t that lucky. </p>

<p>And also, seriously, no one in a majority white area is going to be afraid of a lone black guy in the company of other whites except in very rare circumstances. The fact other people in Maine weren’t shaking in their boots doesn’t really say much. </p>

<p>@Mathinduction‌ </p>

<p>I’m a current undergrad in Mathematics at UChicago. I’d say I’ve had a great opportunity to study Math + Mathematical subjects and have taken advantage of a lot of the opportunities this department has to offer. I guess our cases are a little different since I’ve always liked the notion of the “Renaissance Man” or the liberal arts education as a complement to Math/Science. If you have any questions, please PM me.</p>

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<p>Hi davorin,</p>

<p>It’s certainly not a stretch at all to say that racism is a source of some peoples’ fear. But JHS’ remarks on this issue over time, or even the fact that his words require such delicate parsing, indicate that he is not suggesting anything so banal as simply that. I’m referring to the reflexive way in which he seems to change the subject to racism when concerned prospects or their parents raise questions about safety at UChicago. Must these questions be repeatedly responded to by playing the race card or changing the subject? Couldn’t these questions reasonably have something to do with the well-documented prevalence of violent crime in areas adjacent to Hyde Park? These are reasonable concerns, and there are reasonable replies (and often JHS himself gives them).</p>

<p>Your own example seems like a fairly normal and expected transition, given your prior background. But what I did <em>not</em> hear you say (and what I consider to be JHS’ straw man here) is that you somehow “freaked out” when you encountered minorities around Hyde Park. If you did, then perhaps you might be one of the xenophobes that JHS warns of. But I seriously doubt that was your reaction at all, and if it wasn’t then it seems to me that if anything your experience undermines JHS’ straw man and serves to underscore my complaint.</p>

<p>The examples I cited with our foster son were hardly exhaustive. We were also with him in urban settings, on rural and urban campuses, with large numbers of his refugee cohorts, etc. In none of those situations did we observe whites who seemed to be freaking out for fear of them. And I don’t recall him or any of the dozens of other refuges from his cohort remarking that this was a serious problem (though there were certainly other race-based problems). I have little doubt that at least some people felt some level of racially-based apprehension, but I feel sure it seldom rose to freak out levels.</p>

<p>My main point is just that we shouldn’t glibly brush off people’s concerns about safety by suggesting that it’s largely the result of their own racism (we simply don’t know that) or by offering evasive truisms like “No urban university is free of petty street crime” (we already know that, but it’s beside the point).</p>

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<p>Look, rimmail. I have spent almost all of my life living in urban-center neighborhoods where mainly affluent, mainly white communities abutted mainly poor, mainly African-American communities, including West Philadelphia, Capitol Hill (in D.C.), New Haven, Berkeley, and NYC. My kids, collectively, spent 9.5 years at the University of Chicago, and one of them still works in Hyde Park (and the other one lives in a not-so-lovely part of Brooklyn). My wife’s career has meant that she has spent a lot of working time in very poor, mostly minority neighborhoods. So I am pretty familiar with Hyde Park specifically, and neighborhoods like Hyde Park in general.</p>

<p>On that basis, I have a strong belief that Hyde Park is pretty nice; it’s a good example of the sort of neighborhood where most of the University of Chicago’s urban peers are located. It’s not necessarily better than others, but it’s not any worse, either. Anyone who is familiar with (and comfortable in) any of those other neighborhoods will feel at home in Hyde Park. </p>

<p>My kids – whose K-12 education happened in neighborhoods that were far more challenged than Hyde Park – never felt endangered or fearful in Hyde Park, on or off campus. That doesn’t mean that they were naive – they knew what more dangerous neighborhoods were like (including, unfortunately, Woodlawn), and thus could appreciate how dangerous Hyde Park wasn’t. That also does not mean that they didn’t exercise care, and it doesn’t mean that they were never crime victims, either. (One wasn’t; one was. It wasn’t a big deal for more than an hour or two.) </p>

<p>Many students, however, especially those coming from suburban, exurban, even rural families, come to college without previous familiarity with the sort of neighborhood Hyde Park is. Lots of them are anxious about it, because it doesn’t look familiar, and because they hear and read all sorts of things about how dangerous Hyde Park is. For the vast majority of them, that lasts a few weeks, and they figure out how to separate myth from reality and how to negotiate the city, and they generally like it a lot. </p>

<p>But some – including people I know pretty well, relatives – never feel comfortable, and it’s a horrible experience for them. They describe feeling like they are in prison, or under siege, all the time. They are miserable. And, honestly, what triggers those feelings is not any actual experience as victims of crime, but rather seeing poorly-dressed people of color walking around on the same streets they are using. I don’t think they are consciously racist, but they find all those not-like-them people scary, and they don’t get over that. (It’s probably immaturity. One such person I know, who says he never breathed freely or slept soundly in four years at Chicago, now lives quite happily in an urban-pioneer neighborhood. But he’s 39, and highly influenced by his wife, who loves the neighborhood. Ten years ago he still couldn’t have lived there comfortably.) To the extent they can identify themselves, those are the people who should simply avoid coming to the University of Chicago (or Penn, or any similar place). </p>

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<p>I think it’s actually worth conceding that a good part of the issue is also a healthy dose of classism. But race plays into how we make judgments on the class we assume people we see are. People at UChicago, in Hyde Park, generally feel more comfortable around those they perceive to be other members of the university community. Now how do people judge who they think is a fellow University community member? I’d say its mainly snap judgments based on (a) how a person is dressed/groomed/looks (b) what race they are © how the people they are with fall with respect to (a) and (b). The thing is that depending on race people set higher or lower bars. Disheveled and muttering young white guy gets tagged as a grad student, black guy with the same descriptors is definitely not.</p>

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<p>Current UC 3rd year… I’d like to address campus vs off-campus safety. </p>

<p>Beyond issues of race, judgment, homelessness, class, etc. etc. I think it is important in the dialogue to remember that at UofC we have a very, very open campus. The freaking cars that drive through the middle of campus during the day are just so annoyingggggg. Anyway, anyone from HP and other neighborhoods can walk freely on campus. This, for me is a huge issue, having lived in Snell-Hitchcock (the dorm of fame here at UofC in many ways, being central to campus and the oldest dorm) was broken into not once, but multiple times last year in the span of a few months. An unknown man (who happened to be black) broke into the dorm, stole items from people’s rooms, and was seen in rooms while students were attempting to sleep.</p>

<p>The reality is that there are things like this that happen all the time in HP. Stuff is stolen, people are robbed by gun point, other stuff happens weekly here. Though most people will be unaffected this stuff happens alot in HP. Sorry I don’t have statistics but statistics don’t really tell you much bc of population density, % students on/off campus, etc. Most students live off-campus and UC patrol is literally everywhere in HP but this stuff still happens often. You have to be vigilant about it but it’s not something that should stop someone from coming here. It’s a part of being a student, being in Chicago, learning to protect yourself, learning to carry keychain pepper spray, learning where the safety bluelights are throughout HP, learning what the shuttle routes are, learning not to listen to music while walking alone at night. </p>

<p>Also, knowing where in HP is “safest” is good… there are crime maps out there. This will help you pick where to live when you move off-campus and such. Also, choosing how you want to travel… not taking the Green Line at 2 am cause it’s super shady… etc. </p>

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<p>To chime in again: I grew up in Hyde Park, I went to kenwood academy and I always feel like I’m home when I’m there. MY kid is applying to the U of C. That said, my concerns about safety are valid. It has a lot of crime. The University does a lot to protect its faculty and its students. And my friends and family who remain in Hyde Park–including many African Americans–are just as concerned about crime. What I expect will happen to my kid (if he gets in) is that he’ll feel extremely guarded and vulnerable, start to develop some confidence, use common sense and come to enjoy a fantastic community. But he’ll always be on his guard. </p>

20

<p>My experience as an undergraduate comes from the mid-sixties, but it seems some things don’t change much. I remember the very same warnings about the dangers of the neighborhood and taking care because you’re no longer in a small town or suburb. Most kids embraced and romanticized this aspect of undergraduate life. I myself was from a small city in the segregated south. I had wanted to escape from that. It was why I had come to Chicago. I fancied myself living a gritty urban existence because I was in an apartment south of the Midway surrounded by a sea of black people. This was probably delusional, but it had an emotional truth about it. Most youngsters do consider themselves honorary members of the wretched of the earth and do identify with the genuinely poor, marginalized and dispossessed. In any event it certainly enhances the experience of being a student at a place like the U. of C. if you confront and think about such things. Even the elements of danger in the situation (if they don’t get you killed) can help you grow up and understand the world. Youth should take some risks. During my years at the university I had a dozen or so unfriendly encounters with young black men, some of which could have gotten me hurt, if not killed. However, I came through them, and I think of them now with some nostalgia. A bruised right buttock from a hurled brick, a stolen wallet and a broken-in door weren’t the worst things in the world - and they got one’s attention. I also remember a more or less constant feeling of dread and guilt, mingled with more ordinary forms of adolescent angst, felt in part because of the inescapable perception of the enormity of poverty stretching all around. Such feelings and experiences didn’t interfere with my academic studies but made them seem in fact more precious. </p>

<p>I suppose my message would be that the elements of danger at the university, such as they are, can be a positive. I don’t see them as something to be endured, ignored or risen above - but to be thought about and experienced.</p>