UC Merced: My Final Year

I have officially started my 2nd, and final, year at UC Merced.

Compared to last year, the campus has undergone a complete transformation; the change is incredible.

There are nearly double the people and double the buildings.

I have spent the last year, with the exception of winter break and spring break, watching, firsthand, the construction of the world’s first public research university of the twenty-first century and it has simply be astonishing.

To see the construction of a university is a particularly unique experience for all who experience it.

For me, the nascent university in the Great Central Valley is more than a university. It is a place where people come to learn, to work, to discover, to know, to grow and to realize that the world is a complex. The complexity of the world is not something to shy from; rather, it is something to embrace.

Wow. It has been three years since I graduated high school. I look forward to what is next.