The campus of Carlos III University of Madrid, in Getafe, woke up this morning with the particular bustle of the first days of the academic year. In the cafeteria, there was the smell of freshly made toast and grilled croissants, and several waiters were busy serving coffee to professors and veteran students, while the newcomers looked around what, at times, will be an extension of the classrooms during this year. On everyone’s faces, there was excitement and curiosity, as well as some bewilderment among those starting university. But both those beginning and those who have been walking these halls for several years know that this year will be different because Princess Leonor will also be among them. The eldest daughter of the King and Queen must have noticed that expectation as soon as she arrived, when on the way to campus she passed by a bus shelter where a well-known online graphic design platform had installed the message “Welcome to uni, Princess” days ago.
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If on September 7, 2007, Princess Leonor arrived accompanied by her parents at the Royal Guard nursery in El Pardo, today, September 7, 2026, the eldest daughter of the King and Queen has arrived alone at Carlos III University of Madrid, with a discreet escort, the same that has accompanied her during her time in Wales and military academies over the past five years. Nineteen years later, that short-haired, blonde curly-haired girl, who wore a white and blue striped smock, has started the Political Science degree alongside 4,000 new students with much longer hair, tied in a braid, wearing dark jeans, a white shirt, and a black bag. But she maintains the same “eagerness” she had then to learn and continue training for the responsibility she will one day be called to assume.
Leonor arrived at the Getafe campus at quarter to nine, fifteen minutes before classes began. She walked calmly with the rest of her classmates. If it had not been for the presence of all the media, she would have gone unnoticed. At the entrance of the Adolfo Posada building, she was awaited by the rector of Carlos III University, Ángel Arias; the vice-rector of Students, Pilar Otero; and the dean of the Faculty of Social and Legal Sciences, Antonio Descalzo, who welcomed her to what will be her university for the next four years. People looked out from the windows of the buildings at the entrance to the campus and took photos of the moment, while photographers, cameramen, and accredited journalists – a total of 50 people – immortalized the moment.
“So many people, poor thing,” was heard from a student who, on her way to the cafeteria, encountered the media. Another replied, “She must be used to it.” “Girl, no one gets used to this,” said a fourth. Among another group of four students, one wanted “to see her arrive.” “I’m excited to welcome her and make her feel accompanied,” she said to two other classmates.
The Princess arrived calm and very smiling. Alone and with a firm and confident step. She was “very eager” to start this new stage, as she herself said last July during her farewell at the General Air Academy in San Javier (Murcia). While her classmates took photos and recorded videos of her arrival, Leonor greeted normally everyone who looked at her. She even received supportive applause from the students who saw her arrive.
After years of studying and training in centers where there was a clear directive to treat her without distinctions and as just another student, the Heiress now begins a stage in which she will share classrooms, professors, and hallways with thousands of students. And, although the academic staff will treat her the same as any other student, it will still be necessary to wait and see how she performs in a much more open academic environment than those she has been in until now.
After the initial greetings, the Princess headed to class. At 9:00 a.m., she began her first day as a university student with a brief explanation by Gema García Albacete, director of the Political Science degree, about how academic life works. Then came the first actual class: Theory of Law, taught by Rafael de Asís Roig. As an anecdote, it is worth noting that De Asís earned his doctorate under the supervision 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, administered the oath of loyalty to the Magna Carta to then Prince Felipe when he reached adulthood. Forty years later, one of his disciples was responsible for giving his daughter her first university class.
At the end, Princess Leonor will have a practical class on Research Methodology in Social Sciences with Carlos Santiago Caballero and will close her first day with the master class on Fundamentals of Political Science by Pablo Simón Cosano, which she will share with students of the International Studies degree. Each class will last an hour and a half, with fifteen-minute breaks between them. It will be her first contact with a methodology that precisely seeks to mix students, disciplines, and different perspectives to approach politics from Law, Economics, Sociology, or International Relations.
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