Students in the beginnings of the University led very simple lives.  They were almost all poor and really didn’t have a lot to do, so the majority of them became involved in the same activities.  This led to a nice sense of community on the campus.  There were very few school-run activities so the students came up with their own clubs and organizations. In the very beginning, students could choose from only three areas of study, but this expanded as more students enrolled. 

Students in the beginnings of the University led very simple lives.  They were almost all poor and really didn’t have a lot to do, so the majority of them became involved in the same activities.  This led to a nice sense of community on the campus. There were very few school-run activities so the students came up with their own clubs and organizations. In the very beginning, students could choose from only three areas of study, but this expanded as more students enrolled. 

When the University of Nebraska was just starting out students could choose from three course paths: The Classical, The Scientific, and The Selected. Classical was the study of literature and fine arts; Scientific, the study of math and science.  The “Selected” course path was only for highly gifted students who were given the privilege to mix the other two course paths and make their own curriculum. As the years went on and more students enrolled, more courses and career paths were offered. The Goal was to have six main colleges: Ancient and Modern literature, mathematics, and natural sciences; agriculture; law; medicine; practical science, civil engineering, and mechanics; and a college of fine arts.  It would take time for these all to develop and some would fail along the way.

The first class room experiences involved teachers purely lecturing students out of a textbook based purely on known facts. Students were expected to be in class for hours per day, and lab was unheard of.  There was no real creativity, and research was not a part of the curriculum. In the next twenty years this changed a lot, and the university ended up being very much researched based, as it is today.

The literary societies were really the center of life outside the normal school day.  With little else to attract the students on a Friday night, almost everyone was a member of a literary society.  Their purpose was "to help build up and perfect the moral and intellectual capacities and in like manner the social qualities" of their members.  The only thing that rivaled these groups on a Friday night was a show at the Centennial Theater where students would go to watch plays.

Only twenty students did actual college coursework the first year that the University opened; the rest were in a special preparatory program that educated at more of a high school level in order to prepare students for the college material.  There were about 110 in this program. The University did not grow as expected in the first couple years with only 25-30 new students enrolling in the second year of instruction.  The University did start to see growth after it had been open a few more years and people became accustomed to the idea of college.