I’ve been pondering my first impressions of Trinity College, and I’ve decided to try and reserve judgement on their system here until I’ve seen it further in action. Nonetheless, it seems a lot more clunky than the University of Minnesota (and, presumably, most American universities). I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but I am technically not in class as of yet - I’m attending lectures as part of a start-up program for visiting Americans, which is EXTREMELY helpful, as otherwise I’d be completely adrift when the actual semester starts on the 28th of September.

I say the system is clunky because TCD (Trinity College, Dublin - a handy acronym) has not embraced technology to the extent that American schools have. Course registration is done in person, not online. Connecting to the Trinity wireless network is Byzantine. The library, while impressive, is difficult to navigate, and most of their books are stored off-campus at an archive near the airport. To be honest, I think that the Minnesota library is probably superior in its collection, but, on the other hand, the Trinity libraries are vastly superior in terms of study space. The newest library building, the Ussher, was built in 2003 and greatly resembles the Minneapolis Public Library, right down to its atrium. I am, as a matter of fact, writing this very entry while sitting in the Ussher’s spacious study area, sitting across from two cute Irish girls who I can only hope are whispering about me (wishful thinking, probably).

One of the greatest disappointments has been the buildings in which our classes are held. The history department is housed in the arts building, a concrete monstrosity dating from the late 1970s that wouldn’t look out of place on the U of M’s West Bank. Apparently, there was quite a controversy when the Arts Block, as it is called, was established, as many Trinity professors thought that the building compromised the architectural integrity of the school. They may have been right, but in all fairness, the old buildings from the 1790s were totally inadequate to meet the needs of the expanding university. The old main library, for example, was gigantic for its day (around 1800) and was used by undergraduates as late as 1960, but became unsuited for modern challenges and is now more or less a museum. It’s a damn shame, because it looks like something out of the movies - one of our professors, an Englishman, said that for sheer visual appeal, the old Trinity library beats out Cambridge and Oxford’s branches. I haven’t had a chance to look at it myself, but I intend to at some point.

I suppose I’ve rambled on about the college long enough, and I’ve made a personal vow to keep these posts under a thousand words (probably won’t be as long after the novelty wears off) but I should say a thing or two about Dublin proper. It is a city that is in many senses similar to major cities in the United States, but it is much more accessible by foot, and by way of comparison much more crowded than Minneapolis/St. Paul, although it is not much larger. The buildings are generally older, but not uniformly so (unlike Paris). I would be surprised, though, if most of the homes in Ranelagh and Rathmines (two residential neighbourhoods) were less than 80 years old.
As I’ve said, I’ve found the Americans to be a rather unimpressive lot, as these things go, or at least a group of people with whom I have very little in common. I excused myself from conversation last night after one of my flatmates went on a half hour soliloquy on the joys of marijuana to the general approbation of the others. More power to them, but I didn’t want to talk about that for a half an hour. And then, I’m afraid, I may have come off a bit rude to a girl from U Penn after it was revealed that she was from Manhattan and went to a private school. I’ve also been a bit… unnerved by the use of the term JAP-py among the prep school brigade - JAP is an acronym for Jewish-American Princess, but as someone who is even obliquely familiar with the Pacific War will tell you, Jap is not perhaps a term we should throw around so casually.
Well, I suppose that about does it for today, but I do have one or two more thoughts on Trinity College and modernization. It seems to me that they are walking along a bit of a tightrope.

Trinity is one of the oldest colleges in the world, or at least the English-speaking world, and remained astonishingly insular until the 1970s. They were, as a matter of fact, closer to being an English college in Ireland than an Irish university. As it stands now, their student population has grown from around 3,000 forty years ago to around 16,000 today - a mediocre size by Minnesota standards, but still a colossal growth rate. Add that to other challenges of modernization, and you begin to see some problems. I will say this, however - so far, I haven’t seen the same signs of blatant corporatization that seem to infect most American schools. Faculty and provosts still have enormous power, and while our university president is a businessman, Trinity College’s president is Mary Robinson, the former president of Ireland and UN commissioner for human rights.

P.S. Sorry about the length of this post, but this is a backlog from the past 2 days because I've been having some problems accessing the Internet here.