My old school

Steely Dan had a song in the 70s about never going back to your old school.  One night last week, I disregarded this advice and returned to my undergraduate alma mater, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, for the first time in over 20 years. Boy, was I surprised!

The place has really grown both in campus size and in number of students enrolled. When I went, there were maybe (this is a guess that could be a stretch, actually) 8,000 students enrolled . . . now there are over 24,000! Back in my day, there wasn't much of a campus life. The school was located on the far north side of the city (actually, it seemed like it was in the country then). Now, the city has grown to it and beyond. They call it University City. There's lots of stuff going on, both on campus and nearby.

There are many new buildings at UNCC, like the Student Union building above. They all have a similar look, and the campus is modern-looking and very clean. I went to a meeting in the College of Education building, and it almost made me want to go back to school. Emphasis on almost.

When I was a student there, we only had a couple of sports programs, but none of them were particularly interesting. It's mostly a basketball school - and there have been some successful basketball seasons and several trips to the NCAA tournament. I never went to a basketball game there and I probably won't now. But in 2013 when their new football team debuts, you might just find me in the stands of the new stadium. If I'm still living here then, I might even consider buying season tickets. Go 49ers!