The Orbis

A refreshingly brisk fall afternoon inspiring introspection with its cooling breeze, 300 inquisitive college students demonstrating their immeasurable collective power, a quaint cobblestone road providing endless ambient room for its energized visitors, a fiery and outraged university professor selflessly offering her mind to her attentive class, a scratchy red megaphone barely projecting its desperate voice and, consequently, a far-reaching and entangling traffic jam congesting its unexpecting city . . .

An exaggerated first paragraph of a tale stolen from the fruitful student movements of the sixties? A lamentably unrealized daydream of many optimistic, questioning and progressive college students? Or, perhaps, the latest and greatest concoction of the never-tired gang of the mighty Vanderbilt liberal activists?

No, I am terribly afraid none of those possibly merited designations proves fitting.

The described paragraph, although hopelessly failing to capture fully the contagious sentiments of progress and empowerment, shares with you only a glimpse of a typical day in my academic life here in the city with the best airs, yes, the tremendous Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Please allow me the rather overdue introduction to the academic gift, explosion of scholastic inquiry and discovery and inciter of countless political uprisings, la Universidad de Buenos Aires: the federally-funded, oldest and most reputable university to call Buenos Aires its enchanting home.

To describe successfully the sheer power and potential of this scholastic treasure trove is to attempt to navigate the darkened waters of the Río de la Plata with a hastily-made raft and a plastic spoon: a simply daunting and nearly impossible feat for the very limited confines of this international promulgation.

To begin, 350,000 students (yes, truly a small army) and I call la Universidad de Buenos our always hospitable and smiling academic home. The dimly-lighted classrooms house its bustling students six days of the week (sans Sunday) and witness the common four-hour durations of instructing spectacles given by our most knowledgeable professors.

I have had the complete pleasure to meet and befriend many Argentinean students who valiantly commute up to three long hours to la UBA every day in order to reap fully the infinite academic resources and intellectual stimuli offered by this always blossoming flower.

In spite of horrifically funded and supplied facilities, the always impressive student body and resourceful staff absolutely fill every precious moment with intensively thoughtful discourse, critical question periods and incredibly condensed lectures. I promise I do not misreport when I explain the daily happenings; during the 360-minute overwhelming experience that my Popular Culture Seminar never fails to be, the professor has entranced his class of 300 plus students to the incomprehensible extent where even a muffled exhale can be heard with the most obvious and personal detail.

As a manifestation of the perpetuating student and faculty against concerning the lack of properly functioning facilities and misappropriated funds, my Popular Culture Seminar class excitedly hurries to the street every possible meeting. Rightfully so, as the Facultad de Ciencias Sociales (one of the largest boasted by la UBA) lacks its own building, functioning bathrooms, proper ventilation, natural light, items which only serves as the short beginning to a possible lengthy list of grievances.

I remember the first adventure to the calling cobblestones with the most vivid and sensual details: every outraged student quickly grabbed the closest faculty chair, descended four flights of uneven stairs with a hurried step and settled themselves with an unrivaled triumphant air as the last melancholic automobiles fled the newly-invigorated city street. The most striking aspect of this unimaginable form of modern education, however, proved the unparalleled level of involved participation, processed thought and precise questioning.

I suppose after all the adventurous daily sailings through the unpredictable seas of la Universidad de Buenos Aires, I find myself in the eye of the Argentinean-academic hurricane for a moment of peaceful reflection.

The dramatic and always unfolding differences between the North American students and educational systems with its Argentinean equivalents simply could not highlight themselves more extravagantly. Everyday the sheer appreciation and sincerest gratitude felt by my fellow students fills me with such inexplicable joy and inspiration, for in all of my academic history I have simply never encountered matching intellectual curiosity and seizure.

Most importantly, the enormous troop of students absolutely takes realizes its great fortune and therefore covets every beautifully glistening moment.

As I struggle to express my sentiments cohesively and conclude my sprawling thoughts, I only hope the several anecdotes provided may shed some of the warming South American light into an academic world completely foreign to the meticulously padded grounds of the seemingly overly-structured and contrived Vanderbilt University and possibly instigate a moment of analytical re-evaluation, sincere introspection and great appreciation.

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