What are large universities like?

I went to the the third largest univeristy in the USA in 1975 - 1976. It was my first experience with going to ANY type of public schookl. After going to private college prpatory schools and Tlulane university for 4years, U of A was was something of surpise, even though i had anticapted going through culture shcock, but his was very different from the cluture shock that i connow consider to be normal that grew up with between greater New orleans and the Oklahoma panhandle. I never realized until Uof A how much NATIONAL politics is involved when you go to public university. The University or Airzona in Tucson WAS Huge, in terms of how many queare miles or acres the Tucson campus has.. I learned a lot about myself in that year. mainly that i could mage my type 1 diabetes by myself without a parent in the background to rescue me. My roommate was also a type 1 diabetic. We never really did like each other very much but we did help each other and had enough sense to contact the other person's firends in the same dorm . In sense each floor of the dorm and the entire dorm becams a community. I also realized i was not quite ready to leave ONE of my homes yet. i went back to Tulane and moved into a dorm at the end of a term, shich shocked my roommate.. She waslasw student from Thailand who was just about to go back to Thailand. This was also known as the married students dorm, but there was an entire wing of single of graduate student aged students.. I never did know my neighbors on the seventh floor but one of my French roommates had completely bilingual friend in the same dormitory. Most of the time we just minded our business, although there were some potluck dinners, but there were no Rules that you had to paricapte in any of the social functions.

Large universities can be pretty overwhelming at the beginning. because even samll groups of people develop something of a subculture within the larger "culture of the university and colleges. There's a certain amount adjustment time for everyone who is new, especially if you area normally shy person who prefers to fade into the bckground and become a silent observer. People will gossip, and they will gossip about YOU. Large universities are very competivie, and when you get to graduate school, it becomes MORE compettitive and the politics of university life is something you should NOT ignore, because you are starting to aly the foundations of your PROFESSIONAL reputation for the rest of your life in college and graduate school. Your ego will take a lot of hard blows. you either respect yourself enough to keep trying, or you give up on yourself, maybe for the rest of your life. I eventually got desperate enough to go back to school and then i went back to graduate school 2 years later. at the University of Oklahoma. I did NOT leave home. I just set up a third home in third location. New orleans is less and less home. It's been more than 2 years since I've been "home" to New Orleans.

You eventually have a group of people who you are firiends o or have worked with at a large university.