University of Pittsburgh - Owl Yearbook (Pittsburgh, PA)

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has definite plans to attend graduate school, often considers himself lucky to find a fob as a laboratory assistant. A Ph.D. candidate in any field of science is considered a duffer if he does not have some sort of government research grant to cover his tuition and pay most of his living expenses, while graduate students in the humanities and social sciences are forced to work on their own and attend part-time classes. The result of University expansion and the academic plums received by the scientific fields of research work has been another lost generation. Amid the clicking of computer relays, the rumble of bulldozers, and the quoting of construction costs in the million-dollar bracket, the undergraduate still exists. He is often confused, lonely, and lost, feeling alone in a world which is not of his making. He may not be neglected, but he often feels that way. His ninth-floor advisor ends his private conference as quickly as possible, and as the student leaves, he imagines he can hear the computer whirring on the floor below him. He finds himself in lecture courses with two hundred other students and referred to by a seat number instead of his name. He is thrown in with a group of strange people from all over the earth whom he does not know and who do not know him. His instructors, pressed for time, often find it convenient to brush off his questions with a suggestion that the student work on his own and find out the answer for himself. His classmates begin to form dormitory cliques, to join fraternities and sororities, and to become active in student organizations. He looks about himself for something that will provide an aim or goal to his life, for something that will give him a purpose. This something may be a booth in the Tuck Shop, a girl, or a desk on the publications floor, but, hopefully, he finds it. If he does not, he soon learns that Pitt is no place for anyone who has a trace of apron strings around his waist. Although the undergraduate is the lowest man on the academic totem pole, although he is often neglected, he is still the vital force which brings the University to life, and this is his book. This is his story, seen through his eyes, and told in his words.

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The Life In the southwestern corner of Pennsylvania, two rivers cut down through the mountains and meet to form a third. Four miles away from the point where these two rivers join, there is a university which has, as one of its major claims to fame, a forty-two story Gothic skyscraper called the Cathedral of Learning. This is the University of Pittsburgh. Around this building revolves the life of the University. A student’s education begins at registration in its Commons Room, and ends at Commencement on its lawn. Even though there are additional buildings scattered from the medical center on the hill to Schenley Park, this building is still the center and symbol of the University. And the number of additional buildings for the University is steadily growing. Langley Hall and Trees Hall are already centers of science and swimming classes, and the sound of bulldozers echoes across the campus as a fine arts building is constructed in Schenley Park and a new wing is added onto a medical center hospital. Plans have recently been disclosed for a National Aeronautics and Space Administration research center to be connected with the University. The most striking project of all is a new building which will span the formerly useless Panther Hollow. The major feature of this combination bridge-building will be the computer housed in its basement, the use of which will be instantaneous communication with any spot in the universe. Also on the drawing boards is a method to transfer human speech directly onto magnetic computer tape. Once this process is perfected and the computer housed safely in its basement, every member of the University staff from the rank of assistant professor on up will go to his office at 4:45 each afternoon and there dictate into a tape recorder his thoughts of the day. Whether he has been thinking of Melville or molecules, his thoughts will be remembered by the giant brain in Panther Hollow and thus become available within thirty seconds for anyone who wishes to use them. The University will become one gigantic brain. University expansion and the burgeoning field of space research have brought with them greater emphasis on the sciences and graduate work in those sciences. A graduate with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry or physics, unless he

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September brought its heat, its classes, its bonfires, and its football games. The first pep rally, held just before the game with Miami University, was nationally televised, and the students turned out in force. They brought banners and pennants which exhorted the team to win its game and their mothers to send money. Coeds and cheerleaders swelled the throng, adding a touch of glamour to the boisterous crowd. At the first football game, the exuberant and optimistic students arrived early, in order to reserve a seat from which they could easily see the predicted slaughter. The students’ enthusiasm remained with them throughout the band’s performance and the pre-game activities, then turned into a dull despair as they saw the wrong team being slaughtered, and the disappointed faces began to dot the stands.