Describe your school or university

I'll describe the university I went to, which is in a fairly small city a few hours from where I grew up, chosen partly because of the course and partly, if I'm honest, because I wanted some distance from home at that point in my life. Physically it's an old campus, red brick buildings mixed in with a few much newer glass ones that never quite matched the rest architecturally, all arranged around a slightly overgrown central lawn where everyone ended up sitting the moment the weather turned decent. I spent three years there doing a degree in economics, though looking back what I actually did there feels like far more than just lectures and exams — a lot of late nights in the library before deadlines, a part-time job in the student union bar that taught me more about dealing with people than most of my actual course did, and a small group of friends I'm still close to now, which I think is the real thing that place gave me. How I feel about it now is warmer than I expected, honestly; at the time I complained constantly about the food, the weather, the workload, but with a decade of distance most of that has faded and what's left is mostly fondness, plus a slight surprise at how much of who I am now was quietly shaped in those three years without my really noticing it happening at the time.