I’d have second thoughts about it. On the plus side–it was big enough, and diverse enough (and not just ethnically) that you could make it what you want: you want greeks & football, you got it; you want feely-touchy, you got it; you want nobel laureates, got them too, by the bushel. And it was cool to be surrounded by the best & the brightest.
On the downside–4.6 years there, and never entered a professor’s office. Mostly my fault, of course, but that says something. Huge lecture halls, most undergrad instruction done by grad students.
Eissclam, I was there from 8/1991 to 5/95, I think (I would have to check my CV to be sure). Hmmmm…we must have met. You aren’t the brilliant woman with the music and psych background, are you? Right now, she is the only applicant I remember. Do you remember Wes, the curly-haired head of the dept? I was the young, female lowly assistant prof teaching social psychology, by the way.
CrankyAsAnOldMan, yes, I was serious about that. Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind them requiring that some liberal arts classes be taken, but I do have a problem with the number and choices they specify.
It’s gotten to the point where to get an engineering degree there students have to average about 20 hours a semester (give or take), while the “academs” (non-engineering students) can afford to average much fewer. I also don’t like the fact that some of those required hours MUST be in certain areas. If they want to require liberal arts classes then fine, let the students take linguistics and psychology and anthropology etc. I do not need to be required to take humanities classes and write papers about ancient greeks, or philosophers espousing irrelevancies.
And this is probably a bit off topic by now, but what the heck, I figured I should respond.
Yeah, me too. But the mental image of such a harmless-looking guy speeding down University Avenue at 110mph, cussing up a storm, is pretty damn amusing.
Now rack, even I wouldn’t go so far as call Goat Roast cultural. Primative culture, maybe. But never culture. (It was a party cause the cops always showed up.)
Undergrad years 1 thru 2.5: Washington Univ. in St. Louis. I’d go back in an instant (assuming I had won the lottery).
Undergrad years 2.5 thru 5: University of Kentucky. This was at a rough time in my life, so my experience is somewhat colored, but I’d probably go back. When I turn sixty, I intend to become a Donovan Scholar.
Law School: University of Louisville. Loved, both academically and socially. In a heartbeat…
Undergrad - Miami University (Oxford, Ohio), physics. Grad - Miami again, MA English; PhD work (ABD) in medieval lit, THE Ohio State University (that fine institution insists on the The). I wouldn’t go back to either one (I’ve already been there!), even though they’re both OK schools. I am appalled that my daughter is considering going to The OSU, but only because I think she ought to get farther away from home.
TheNerd, I can understand your frustration - I felt the same way as an undergrad. Humanities courses are MUCH better at the grad level; the classes are more focused than at the undergrad level, but they’re also more able to accommodate wide-ranging interests.
Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas Texas. I was there during the ‘death penalty’ years while it was in transition from an conservative, southern, liberal arts college with a mostly (economic) homogenous student body to a liberal (PC) hellhole where the lines between have’s and have not’s were glaring. Instead of most of the students paying full tuition and everyone being equal they almost doubled the tuition and made the really rich kids pay high tuition while offering tons of scholarships for those who couldn’t afford it. It created a lot of animosity. Would I send my kids there - maybe, maybe not - I haven’t kept up with university politics that much. IMHO a good college for true Texans is Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches.