That is ** really ** bizarre, Montfort. When there were pics of you and Anniz posted several weeks ago, I mentioned to Nymysys that you looked a lot like someone I went to Emerson with. And now he’s living out here in LA. I don’t * think * he has a brother… but that’s just too strange of a coincidence. What’s your brother’s first name?
The University of Cincinnati.
Would I go there again? Yes. I’m sure I would have gotten a better education elsewhere and/or met some really neat people had I expanded my horizons and gone away to school. But because I stayed in Cincinnati, I met my husband. And now we have 2 darling little girls, a beautiful home, a loyal beagle hound…
Having a kick-ass career would have been nice, yes. But having a happy, fulfilling personal life – that’s what it’s all about.
Another Maroon here, TP605. Would I go back to the University of Chicago? Probably, but I’d’ve done a LOT of things differently, like take “Little Red Schoolhouse” and a Photography course. Weirdly enough, the U of C was my first choice (LOVED that application!) and it was the only school I was accepted at, though I probably would have gone to Harvard had they accepted me (family tradition and all).
There was a lot to love about the U of C. The insanely rigorous academics, the continuously loosing football team, the architecture, fairly accessable profs. For the intellectually hungry, you couldn’t ask for a better school. The U of C will fill you up and keep it coming. It’s like a bottomless well of knowledge. The student body also struck me as intensely ideologically diverse. If you go, prepare to have every tenet of your beliefs challenged. I do sort of wish I could go again, knowing what I know now. Maybe after I win the lottery…
I’m going back to my ten year reunion in '02…
** The University of California at Berkeley **
I’d certainly go again, but not really for the educational experience, which was pretty weak (probably aided by my slacker tendencies and a profound lack of respect for authority). it was great to have over 100 people in about 70% of my classes and to have my senior seminar taught by a clueless grad student. not to mention a decidedly elitist atmosphere.
what Cal was good for in the early 1990s: being one of the first campuses in the nation looking at the issues of multiracial people. i doubt i would have had the opportunity at 99% of American campuses to explore my identity to the degree that i did at Berkeley. it allowed me to truly understand myself.
my freshman year was dominated by the Gulf War and i was radicalized sometime after that. and it introduced me to the Bay Area, where i still live, and my girlfriend of 7 years. mostly a positive experience when you add it all up.
St. Michael’s in Winooski, Vermont. For a Catholic college, it was a bit too liberal for my tastes, but I guess overall it was a good experience.
University of Illinois at Chicago. Very good engineering school, but it’s a commuter college so very little social life. Cheap, so my student loan payments after graduation were miniscule. I missed a lot by not going away for school, but I met two of my best buddies there, so I wouldn’t change a thing.
[hijack]That’s cool-there are so few people who know of it, but it’s becoming better known across the country. 
I’m the class of 1995 myself, after fratermities were gone and well into the Commons system. I did skip my 5-year reunion last summer, though I think the 10-year will be one to make.[/hijack]
Yeah, I finally learned that you get out of school what you put into it, and I could have saved a lot of money and gottent a equal education by going to UT-Chattanooga.
The University of Texas at Austin.
Since some of my friends kids are considering universities now, I’ve recommended it heartily. Which is my way of answering the question of whether I’d do it again.
I loved it! I made many lifelong friends, never talked to a counselor in my 5½ years there and a received an excellent education. There was some requirement to see counselors, but I never did and it caused me no problem. Similarly, I never applied for admission; I just showed up for registration. Worked for me.
In talking with my friends kids I’ve realized that the immense size of UT puts some of them off. For me that immensity was a virtue. It was it’s own little city. And, Austin was a fun town with a great arts/kooks/music scene.
Another thing that made it my choice was the fact that I could afford it; my college education was self-funded and I could pay for it with what I made (mostly as a cabdriver). I left without having any student loans. One of my friends has a kid at Rice University right now and I just don’t see how he’s paying for it.
I’ve also taken several classes at other schools, primarily the University of Houston (~45 hours) which is largely a commuter school. I never really became a part of campus life there, but it is the affordable solution for many people.
I went to Immaculata College, an extremely small (about 1,000 undergrads, about 400 max lived on the campus) catholic women’s college. If I had a choice I probably would NOT pick to go there. I believe I received a quality education and made some very close friends…but sometimes I feel like I was really cheated out of the whole “college experience”. Not that I wanted to go to school to party and meet guys…but COME ON. Zero parties, zero guys to meet, and zero social life until I was 21 and could get OFF the campus to the nearby bars/clubs. I am not exaggerating one bit.
I went to Rice University, and I’d go again if it were the same. But they’ve been slowly but surely taking away power from the students and making the engineering students’ lives hell by requiring far too many useless liberal arts classes.
The people were great though, for the most part.
Of course I do. In fact, my very first post on the SDMB, in this thread, concerned Toad Suck Daze. And I’ll go so far as to allow your headgear to remain unconsumed a while longer. But one weekend a year only shows up how dead things are the rest of the year (and even adding Goat Roast didn’t change things much). Maybe things are different now that there’s at least one substantial high-tech employer in town, but when you live someplace where having to drive twenty miles to a much smaller town to buy booze seems like a welcome diversion, you ain’t exactly in a cultural mecca.
Wooo, my first topic to go 2 pages!
Like I said, went to Notre Dame - and I did love it and I would most likely go again.
While I really did like the close knit community and the Catholic character of ND, it was hard to be at a University where the students were, as a whole, more conservative than the faculty. It was difficult to hear students who, I would think, should be opening their minds as far as possible, still think that gay people were completely foreign and unreal. I certainly wasn’t coming out of the closet there. I think back and can think of people who must have been gay, had I any clue how to pick that out (I’ve got a bit of a better clue now).
A good thing about ND was that you could openly believe in God. That may sound odd but I had friends who went to Amherst who said that believing in God was a reason to be shunned as intellectually inept. Going to church was actually fun - each dorm has it’s own chapel and a priest who lives in the dorm. Mass was at 10 p.m. on Sunday night. It was a study break and you could come in sweats and a t-shirt. No one cared, as long as you came.
Also, probably the very best thing about ND is that everyone does volunteer work. I probably did 20 hours a week and the average was probably around 10 for each student. One out of every 9 students who graduates goes on to spend the next year doing service/volunteer work. It’s a very socially conscious university.
I’d go again - but I’d do it a little differently.
Tibs
This is my seventh year at the University of Kentucky. (four undergrad, three medical)
Undergrad–yes, I’d go again. UK does a fantastic job, for a public university, of taking care of the good students. The Honors Program creates a very tightly-knit community and provides all the support you could ever want.
There is plenty I would change about the campus itself, and plenty I would have done differently, but I would certainly go back.
Med school–without a doubt. It’s hard to point to any one thing about it that has been outstanding, but I think they do a great job of turning out well-trained doctors with a minimum of emotional turmoil. I’ve also made better friends in med school than I’ve ever had before.
The main reason that I’d go to UK again, though, should be obvious–basketball tickets, baby.
Dr. J
Heheh, cool. He went there fall 1995-spring 1999, and spent the last semester in the LA program.
We only barely resemble each other as brothers (here’s a three year old picture of us, I’m on the left), though.
He probably was the only student at Emerson in that timeframe named Ben.
I went to UNLV - University of Nevada at Las Vegas. I’m Canadian and had really good grades and could have transferred to any school in the USA, but I picked there. What an awesome experience. If I could turn back the hands of time…I’d go there again in a heart-beat. I skipped classes to go to the casinoes and still made Dean’s List. Maybe that says a lot for the competition.
I went to the University of Vermont for two years before switching over to Montana State University for the remainder. I definitely wish that I would have stayed at UVM. The people and the city of Burlington were a near perfect fit for me but i felt that i needed to get out of New england for awhile. MSU was nice… for a year. Then it became very stale. Only so much to do in Bozeman for someone who doesn’t smoke a lot of pot and ski 4 days a week.
But UVM in a heartbeat if I had it all to do over.
Campbellsville College in Campbellsville, KY.
Yes, I would love to go back there. The Church Music department (and the music department in general) was the best. All the profressors that were there in 1984-1986 are still there. The College is now a University, and they offer Master’s degrees in church music. I had to quit after three years (started January 1984, left December 1986), so I would love to go back and finish my degree. It is still a small school, which I like very much.
Virginia Tech (go Hokies). And yes, definitely.
University of Tampa, a small, private liberal arts college. Their Writing program is terrific, they only use PhD.s (no teaching assistants), and the class ratio is 13:1. Wonderful people, great city, and a great education. I would highly recommend it.
I just graduated with 2 degrees this week from UM, College Park, and only went there initially because my parents made me turn down Duke for a full academic scholarship. Best decision of my life, and now I have no loans to pay off either. I fell in love with the school after a semester and will definitely miss the place now that I’m done. I would definitely do it again, and recommend it to anyone looking for a top-tier education at a relatively cheap price. Several programs ranked nationally in the Top 25, profs who actually care about undergrads, and one of the most diverse large research universities around. As we all know, the national ranking books are at least 5-10 years behind the times; UMCP will be way up there in a few more years. Only drawback? Only THREE friggin’ bars in the town for 33,000 students!
C3 and spritle, how long ago if you don’t mind me asking?