Wow lethalfalcon, you and I are quite alike, it's kinda creepy. I used to
HATE outlines with a fiery passion. It was all in my head, and it was awesome in my head. I thought outlines were a total waste of time. I've also done the collaborative projects, and those? They are hard.
In your specific case, I have two pieces of advice. One is a shameless plug for Patrick Rothfuss's book,
The Name of the Wind. A huge portion of that book is about almost exactly what you're talking about: character goes to magic academy, and very little truly "happens". You think you're going to be bored to tears, but instead it's enthralling. So reading that might be an excellent jumping block for ideas. That, and it's an amazing book.
What makes
Name of the Wind interesting? This leads me to advice #2: Conflict!
I think any interesting scene should have tension somewhere in it. Not necessarily "Oh my god if i don't dodge that dagger I'm dead" sort of tension, but somewhere. The best way to create tension is to have conflict. In writing my current book I've identified three important types of conflict: Internal conflict, interpersonal conflict, main conflict. Main conflict is more like the overarching conflict for the entire book. With individual scenes, internal and interpersonal conflict are far more powerful. To make good internal conflict, have a character who is going through change. Interpersonal conflict, I think, is the way you might want to go.
Yes, you could make a romance. Romance is hard; I really hate writing romance. But when you think about it, romance isn't fun to read when it's love at first sight. It's fun when you torture your characters when they consistently fail at romance, either by misunderstanding or something else. In this way, romance can be treated as an interpersonal conflict to overcome by the character. You don't
have to do it this way, of course.
Another great interpersonal conflict which
Name of the Wind uses is rivalry. New enemies are always fun! Rothfuss gave his main character, Kvothe, a rival named Ambrose, and it fleshed out things considerably. Especially when Kvothe wrote a very derrogatory song about Ambrose (Kvothe played the lute, you see.)
So there's an infinite amount of things you can do. Romance, rivalry, giving your main character a hobby. One final thing could be conflict with the setting itself, such as mysteries within the academy. This gives the character things to explore, and intrigues the reader with mysteries, too.
(If I may shamelessly plug, why don't you go join
Reading Excuses? Quite helpful!)
Okay, I'm done rambling. For now.