Partners of the Magazine Alma Mater: 

Before all and everything, I would want to congratulate Alma Mater Magazine, voice of the University students, founded by Julio Antonio Mella, in its 85th anniversary of the creation. 

I would like to  thank the magazine for this opportunity that it offers us of sharing with now a day university students which at this moment  reach hundred of thousands as a result of  the revolution programs put  in practice in these last years.

 Fortunately,   it is not so difficult for all of the university students to get the magazine as it was it for me when I used to study at the International Relationships Superior Institute. I felt always attracted by this magazine because of its published topics. But, maybe for the geographical location of the Institute, far from the central Havana University facilities, it became difficult in those days to obtain a current copy. I also testify about the demand of this publication. 

I started my university studies in 1981 and I was graduated in 1987. I can say that those six years were for me the most cheerful, happy and important time in my entire life, up to now.

 It is an epoch in what one believes that physically everything is possible, and sometimes it seemed to me that it was certain.  So, besides the student responsibility and the festival spirit of that age, I participated in sport and cultural FEU (University Students Federation) and UJC (Young Communist Union) events.

In the UJC, as a member of the Principal Committee of the Institute, I assisted the cultural sphere and, for not lagging behind, during four years of the career I was a member of «Our Theatre» group where I learned a lot and participated in FEU provincial and national festivals. 

I preserve very pleasing memories from f that experience: the rigor, the discipline and the seriousness which that we assumed the preparation, the rehearsals and the commitments of every artistic performance. As a part of that community of fans I had my first and unique experience as an «actor». We enjoy and we also celebrate the victories and prizes obtained in university festivals. In Alma Mater's edition there is an article pointing out the work of the group on that time.*

Besides that incursion in the land of the performance, during those collage years I also participated in diverse sport events. In this matter, contrarily to the theatre group that obtained several prizes, my generation could not leave a worthy remembrance print, which -as an Institute or as participants- can make us proud of.  But in spite of that, we had a good time then, and those memories are a pleasant, cheerful and positive experience. 

It happens that our teaching centre was very small with, more or less, 150 students. It was almost impossible to create quality sport teams in spite of the enthusiasm with which we assumed it. Almost the same people were, at the same time, members of different sport disciplines teams. Of course, we competed with tremendous enthusiasm, although we did not have won. 

They were very important years in our formation, not only from the academic point of view. 

The Institute offered a very good formation; even so I think that I could have taken more advantage out of it. The community of professors was very qualified and also the rigor of the lectures, besides that the FEU brigade and UJC Base Committee analysis about the academic yielding drove to an atmosphere of a high responsibility in the studies. 

Among the subjects that more attracted me were the International Economic Relationships and the Right of Treaties. It should be in that way because the professors of each one of those subjects are, among all of them, the best that I have had in my student life. 

Among the basic subjects of the first years of the career, Mathematical Statistics are the one that more difficulties caused me, although I liked its content. 

Which habits or customs did I incorporate in that stage? 

Well, mainly the consolidation of the reading habit. I already brought it with me, but in those years it became something indispensable that accompanies me until today. Besides the relative abundant reading to the university curriculum, I was interested in the fiction literature and the testimony. 

My university student years, with all the responsibilities: participating in political matter events, studying, loving and having an amusement character, there was a time of a great influence in my formation. 
I believe that there is still in me something of the University years, of those years and those experiences, of that enthusiasm and that spirit that I remember with certain nostalgia. 

I don't know if with these comments I cover Alma Mater's interests for their section «University and me».  I hope this magazine continues making popular the university life for more years ahead; and, again, I congratulate the team that allows its circulation in this stage of Alma Mater's life. 

Fernando Gonzalez Llort  
Oxford Federal Reformatory Centre.  
Wisconsin.  
United States of America.

*«Beyond a Great Prize», Alma Mater, No. 245, March of 1983.