The campus of the Carlos III University of Madrid, in Getafe, dawned this morning with the particular bustle of the first days of the course. The cafeteria smelled of freshly made toast and grilled croissants and several waiters were busy serving coffee to teachers and veteran students, while the newcomers looked around what, at times, will be a continuation of the classrooms this year. There was excitement and curiosity on everyone's faces, as well as some confusion among those who were new to university. But both those who are just starting out and those who have already been walking these halls for several years know that this year will be different because Princess Leonor will also be among them. The first-born of the Kings will have been able to verify that expectation as soon as she arrived, when on her way to campus she passed by a bus shelter where a well-known online graphic design platform installed the message “Welcome to uni, Princess” days ago.
If on September 7, 2007, Princess Leonor arrived accompanied by her parents to the Royal Guard nursery in El Pardo, today, September 7, 2026, the first-born of the Kings has arrived alone at the Carlos III University of Madrid, with a discreet escort, the same one that has accompanied her on her journey through Wales and the military academies for the last five years. Nineteen years later, that girl with short hair and blonde curls, who was dressed in a white and blue striped babi, has started her degree in Political Science along with 4,000 new students with much longer hair, tied in a braid, and wearing dark jeans with sneakers, a white shirt and a black bag. What she does maintain is the same "desire" that she had then to learn and continue training for the responsibility that one day she will be called to assume.
Leonor arrived at the Getafe campus at a quarter to nine, fifteen minutes before the start of classes. She has walked calmly with the rest of her colleagues. If it had not been for the presence of all the media, it would have gone unnoticed. At the entrance of the Adolfo Posada building, the rector of the Carlos III University, Ángel Arias, was waiting for her; the vice-rector for Students, Pilar Otero, and the dean of the Faculty of Social and Legal Sciences, Antonio Descalzo, who have welcomed him to what will be his university for the next four years. In the windows of the buildings at the entrance to the venue, people looked out and took photos of the moment, while accredited photographers, cameramen and journalists – a total of 50 people – immortalized an image that will be part of the Heiress' album.
“So many people, poor thing,” a student could be heard saying who, on her way to the cafeteria, met the media. Another answered: “She will be used to it.” “Dude, no one gets used to this,” said a fourth. Among another group of four students, one of them wanted to “see her arrive.” “I'm excited to welcome you and make you feel accompanied,” she said to two other colleagues.
The Princess has arrived calm and very smiling. Alone and with a firm and sure step. She has arrived “very eager” to begin this new stage, as she told the teachers who received her. She looked very excited while her colleagues took photos and recorded videos of her arrival. She has greeted all the people who looked at her normally, she has even received applause of support from the students who have seen her arrive.
After years of studying and training in centers where there was a clear guideline that she had to be treated without distinction and as just another student, the Heiress now begins a stage in which she will share classrooms, teachers and hallways with 16,000 students. And, although the academic faculty will give her the same treatment as any other student, we will still have to wait to see how she develops in a much more open academic environment than the ones she had been in until now.
After the first greetings, the Princess went to class and had her first contact with 40 other classmates, which in other sessions with international students will reach 80 students. At 9:00 a.m. her first day as a university student began with a brief explanation from Gema García Albacete, director of the degree in Political Sciences, about how academic life works. Then came the first class itself: Theory of Law, taught by Rafael de Asís Roig. As an anecdote, it should be noted that De Asís received his doctorate under the direction of Gregorio Peces-Barba, founding rector of Carlos III and one of the fathers of the Constitution, who in 1986, as president of the Congress of Deputies, took an oath of loyalty to the Magna Carta to the then Prince Felipe when he came of age. Forty years later, a disciple of his has been in charge of teaching his daughter her first university class.
Once the first class has started, the dean of the university explained that the academic center has not had to make any changes to have the princess, who is on the morning shift and will have classes from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. every day except Thursdays, when she will be free except for the days when she has seminars. Each class will last one and a half hours, with fifteen minute breaks between them.
Today the day will continue with a practical session on Research Methodology in Social Sciences with Carlos Santiago Caballero and will close its first day with the master class on Fundamentals of Political Sciences by Pablo Simón Cosano, which will be shared with students of the International Studies degree. It will be your first contact with a methodology that seeks precisely to mix different students, disciplines and perspectives to address politics from Law, Economics, Sociology or International Relations.
Outside the building where the Princess began her university years, some students have pointed out that they were “very excited” to share an academic center with her. “It's a pride,” said one of them. After this first day, it is expected that normality will return to Carlos III and Leonor will become one of the 4,000 new students.
