Stuff You See at Colleges and Universities

Today, I was up at the university (the University of Victoria) with my camera, and I had a bit of time to kill while waiting for my friend’s graduation ceremony to finish.  So I wandered around for a while and it struck me just how many awesome things there are to see.  It reminded me that colleges and universities are great places to visit, if only to see some of the great projects and places. To kill time, I took a few pictures of the types of things you can see:

Periodic Table of the elements - with most of the elements inside

In the chemistry building, right in the middle of the hall is a periodic table filled with samples of all of the non-radioactive elements.  Its neat to see things like pure samples of platinum or titanium.

Greek and Roman artifacts

Near the Greek and Roman Studies offices, there are numerous cabinets and display cases showing off ancient art.  Anything from pots to statuettes to coins, there's a lot there.

The University's big new telescope

This 80 cm telescope is one of the biggest in Canada.  The Physics and Astronomy department has an open house for the public to use the telescope every Wednesday night (I happen to be a host for it.)

Staircase!

Even the architecture is often  worth seeing, like this 6 story staircase.


This is just a small sampling of the things worth seeing.  I didn't even have the time to go into the engineering buildings, where there's nothing but interesting projects going on.  There are all kinds of other things around, such as a greenhouse for plant experiments, classes full of dinosaur bones, and the obvious libraries full of knowledge.  And this is just one school of the countless around the world.  In fact, I might start posting about great things to see at different colleges and universities in the future.


This is probably obvious to those of you who are going or have gone to college, but pass on the word to those that don't know.  Tell them to ask nicely and the staff and students will often be happy to show you what they're working on.  So go visit your local school and have a wander around on a rainy day.