Growing pains

My new academic home feels different than my old campus, and that's not just due to the palm trees and fountains here. It's also because Florida International University is, so to speak, a young whippersnapper.The university was founded in the 1970s, and it was about twenty years ago that it was classified as a Doctoral/Research University. (This is a classification that tells you about the primary focus of the university - whether it's teaching, a lot of research and what kinds of degrees it offers - associate's, bachelor's, or PhDs.) The physics department here only started offering doctoral degrees a few years ago.

Compared to other American universities, which may have been around a hundred or so years, thirty-something is pretty young. You can tell we're still growing because they're constructing a half a dozen buildings at once. We're always short classrooms, which means the classroom nearest to my office has classes most days from 8am to 8pm. Because 90% of the students commute, they can't study together in their dorm rooms, and there's not enough places to meet in the library and student union. So students meet outside in walkways, and sometimes in hallways, to work.

Parking is one of the most serious deficiencies. Because I have a faculty parking permit, I'm lucky enough to get a parking space as long as I arrive before 11am. Students that want a convenient spot try to arrive around 8am. If you arrive at 9am or 10, there's really only one solution, and it's a very civilized one. You join a queue. In each parking lot, at the exit door on each floor, a line of cars waits. When a student who's leaving emerges from the door, the first car follows that student to their parking space and takes their place. Then the whole queue advances one car length. It still means that you have to wait dozens of minutes, but now instead of cruising all over campus, you can conveniently read (or text) from the comfort of your car while you wait.