>> Sounds positively utopian.
> 
> 	There are downsides. Serendipity plays a role. Your adviser could suck.
> Department policies can suck. Grading policies can suck. There is
> variability. It's quite possible you may get stuck with a thesis topic
> that doesn't interest you too much. And for most people, the first 0.5 -
> 1 years of doing research are quite dull. Reading papers in an area you
> barely know anything about is depressing.
> 
> 	But once you learn enough to grok them, that problem disappears.
> 
> 	But that's how life is. Same issue with work. Except I'm almost certain
> it's more likely to be dull.

Heh. Depends what your job is... ;-)

>> You'll excuse me if I'm a little skeptical... I was promised that
>> college would be like this, and it wasn't. I was promised that
>> university would be like this, and it wasn't.
> 
> 	Depends on the university.
> 
> 	At my most recent university in the US, we have 30-40K students.

The uni I went to was pretty tiny. I don't know precisely how big, but 
it consisted of two fairly small buildings, and none of them ever seemed 
particularly crowded.

> They
> form lots of student organizations. You can bet there are lots and lots
> of things going on.

One time I was workin late in the computer room. Just for giggles I 
decided to wander over to the student union bar. They're always putting 
up posters splashed with details about the latest event or whatever.

When I got there, it was amazing... They had a live DJ with a sound 
system and they had disco lighting set up and so forth... and there were 
THREE PEOPLE in the entire bar!

I LOL'd. For real. To this day, it still amazes me that they would go to 
this much trouble to entertain 3 people. Unless that particular night 
was unusually quiet for some reason - and I don't see why that would be.

Epic fail.

> 	The key to all of it is that you have to actively participate if you,
> well, want to participate in those events. They put all kinds of notices
> on bulletin boards, but you actually have to go to them ;-)

Yeah. I guess when I arrived at uni I *was* still in the "must avoid all 
people" frame of mind...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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