Emory University says it is now in possession of letters written by former President Barack Obama to his college girlfriend, Alexandra McNear.

The letters were written between 1982 and 1984 after Obama transferred from Occidental College in California to Columbia University in New York City.

“They are quite beautifully composed and reveal the search of a young man for meaning and identity,” Rosemary Magee, Rose Library director, said in a press release.”While intimate in a philosophical way, they reflect primarily a college student coming to terms with himself and others. In fact, they show the same kind of yearnings and issues that our own students face — and that students everywhere encounter.”

There are nine letters in the university’s collection.

“What is very striking about the letters is how they show President Obama’s intellectual development,” Andra Gillespie, associate professor of political science and director of Emory’s James Weldon Johnson Institute for the Study of Race and Difference, said in the press release. “You can see how intellectually curious he is, even in his early 20s.”

Emory says the public will have a chance to see facsimiles of the letters on Oct. 20 from 2 to 4 p.m. in the in the Woodruff Commons of the Rose Library.

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