I visited Zachry late on the Friday afternoon of Memorial Day weekend. Though it was not exactly teeming with student activity, I saw a more students and heard more voices than I expected. I really wish I had time to visit a non-engineering building the same day, just to assess any activity level differences.
I was nearly alone in the first floor atrium where I chose to write. One student was studying at a table, and another was sleeping on an elaborate wooden bench with striped cushions. I love the old benches and sofas lining Zachry’s hallways. Though they are old, it’s a solid mahogany sort of old, not a worn-out decrepit sort of old. This is the kind of furniture that when you see it, your first reaction is, “they don’t make benches like that anymore”.
I loved Zachry’s three-story atrium. My favorite feature was the ceiling…they somehow managed to put 5 rows of vertical windows onto one horizontal ceiling. My second favorite feature was the old-fashioned brown paneling lining the walls of the atrium and hall. It reminded me of the house I grew up in (technically a mobile home but never seemed like it.)
I’m glad the Mitchell Fundamental Physics Institute and Zachry were back-to-back stops on my writing tour, as this made the contrasts obvious. Both atriums are beautiful, but one is shiny and showy and new, and the other is pleasant and functional and much older. One possesses the sort of beauty that shouts, “look at me!”, and the other has a quiet modest brand of beauty. Zachry is very pretty, and not just the back-handed “you’re surprisingly pretty for someone so old” sort. I like the fancy physics building, but if I had to live somewhere, I think I’d pick Zachry instead.
Noticing Zachry felt like home got me thinking….why have almost all the early stops on my writing tour been engineering buildings? In keeping with the fact that a Ph.D. is a research degree, I probably should have randomized my building tour, writing the building names on scraps of paper, and drawing them out of a hat. Too late for that now. One reason for starting in the engineering quadrant is purely practical: it is adjacent to the parking lot listed on my $275 hangtag. (A side benefit of my writing tour is that it is reducing the per visit cost of my parking permit.) Sometimes I’ve been in a time crunch and didn’t want to waste time walking across campus to a faraway building (that’s a ridiculous argument really….why am I wasting time driving 70 miles to campus to write when I could write at home in my living room?)
I wonder if the true reason I’ve gravitated to the engineering buildings is that my long-unused engineering degree makes me feel at home in them. As I have wandered into campus buildings, I’ve been surprised by an odd self-conscious sensation, as if I’m intruding. I recognize that this is a public university and these buildings are open to all students (except for restricted-access labs and such, which are understandably safeguarded by card-swipers and number pads). I know perfectly well that students take classes in all sorts of buildings. Even engineering students must take history, and presumably their history classes meet in a history building. Granted, there are probably not many history majors attending class in Zachry Engineering Center, but the same principle applies. No one needs to show an engineering identification card to enter Zachry or Wisenbaker. I’m sure no engineer would object to any education grad student writing in Zachry’s atrium, and no physicist would mind my revising research compliance documents next to the Foucalt Pendulum. Similarly, the business majors won’t mind me writing in the business building (whatever that is…guess I’ll find out eventually!) Still, visiting Zachry felt like coming home. I may have left engineering a long time ago, but apparently engineering has not quite left me.
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