University of Gallifrey

The University of Gallifrey was an academic institute situated on Gallifrey. It was attended by the Doctor. (AUDIO: The Song of Megaptera ^[+]Loading...["The Song of Megaptera (audio story)"]) The Thirteenth Doctor claimed to have obtained her doctorate here. (COMIC: Herald of Madness ^[+]Loading...["Herald of Madness (comic story)"]) By most accounts, the Doctor studied at the Time Lord Academy, (TV: The Sound of Drums ^[+]Loading...["The Sound of Drums (TV story)"], etc.) or Prydonian Academy. (TV: The Deadly Assassin ^[+]Loading...["The Deadly Assassin (TV story)"], etc.) One account claimed that the young Doctor originally hoped to get his doctorate from the Academy, but ended up having to study for it "in [his] own time" after being expelled and forced into a low-level bureaucratic job. (PROSE: Divided Loyalties ^[+]Loading...["Divided Loyalties (novel)"])

The Rani, generally documented as having attended the Academy in her early life alongside the young Doctor, (PROSE: The Legacy of Gallifrey ^[+]Loading...["The Legacy of Gallifrey (short story)"], etc.) once made reference to her and the Doctor's "university days". While trying to coax the amnesiac Seventh Doctor to help her with her current scheme, she claimed that he had once told her that thermodynamics had been his "special subject when [he was] at university". This prompted him to hazily remember the Rani, obliviously telling the woman with whom he was conversing that she "remind[ed him] of someone [he] used to know when [he] was there". (TV: Time and the Rani (part 1) ^[+]Loading...{"part":"1","1":"Time and the Rani (TV story)"})

Behind the scenes

The relationship between the Gallifreyan "university" mentioned in a smattering of sources and the more prominent Time Lord Academy of other accounts is unclear. When Time and the Rani ^[+]Loading...["Time and the Rani (TV story)"] saw the Doctor and the Rani referencing their "university days", this was presumably intended as a mere development of the preexisting lore about their and the Master's status as former classmates in what is otherwise called the Academy; indeed, deleted dialogue from later Seventh Doctor episode Survival ^[+]Loading...["Survival (TV story)"] would have seen the Doctor reminding the Master that they were "at university together" as an encapsulation of their shared past. However, many accounts suggest that students enroll in the Academy at a very early age, making it difficult to justify dubbing it a "university". At most, "university" could represent a segment of the Academy's educational track. Moreover, Divided Loyalties ^[+]Loading...["Divided Loyalties (novel)"]'s claim that the Doctor was expelled from the Academy before working all the way up to his doctorate "in [his] own time", considered in light of Herald of Madness ^[+]Loading...["Herald of Madness (comic story)"]'s separate assertion that the Doctor got her doctorate at "the University of Gallifrey", could allow for the interpretation of the University as a distinct institution altogether, in which the Doctor enrolled following their expulsion from the more prestigious Academy.