I had my first college tour yesterday. I’m only going into my junior year, so there are definitely more to come. It was a special visit day where they didn’t just do the standard ninety minute tour. They had the tour, but we also heard a presentation about the college and there was a panel of students that you could ask questions about life at the college. Also, they gave us a free lunch in the cafeteria(even though there isn’t actually such a thing as a free lunch, but it was free to my parents and I). I got a lanyard and a t-shirt, too. It was definitely worth the two hour drive there.
After having this experience, I’m really thinking about what I value in a college or university. It was a small place with only about 1400 students. The town that it is in is also very small, with its downtown only being two short blocks long. When my dad drove us onto campus, at first I felt kind of confused. There were houses, like a normal suburb, then there were college buildings. As I said, this was my first experience, so I don’t have a big school experience to compare it to yet.
There were things that I liked about it, such as everyone was friendly and one of the student panelists even said that she’d never been around people so friendly. Also, the students and faculty seem to get to know one another well, which is something that I think that I want in a college. They said that even the introductory courses only have about 35 people(but they acted liked that was a lot). My own classes probably vary from around 25 to 30 people, depending on the course. An admissions counselor even said that in her senior year, one of her classes had only five students in it. I don’t know if that’s really what I want yet, like what if I hate those people? What if they hate me? That would not be good. I mean, it’d probably be unlikely considering that we’d be having the same major and most likely have a decent amount of common interests, but that’s still a possibility.
The small town thing is sort of isolating. The whole, there’s not much to do around here vibe. I don’t really know why I even care, though. I don’t do many activities with friends that couldn’t be done on campus anyway. Maybe I keep thinking that because the campus itself is also very small. My tour guide said that the longest walk across campus is ten minutes.
I keep thinking, what if I hate the size? What if I think that I would like it and I really don’t once it happens? Some people say that they fall in love with the school immediately. I don’t know. It seemed like a good place for the right person. I’m not sure if I am that sort of person that would like that environment. Basically, I know that I need to check out some big schools. Schools whose student population would make the earth quake if they all gathered onto the small college campus that I visited today. I might as well, especially because there are three schools that I want to tour that are all two hours away. Maybe not two hours in the same direction, but still only two hours. And then there’s a fourth school that’s only half an hour away, twenty minutes if we take the freeway. Plus a fifth that’s nearby enough, too. I could end up loving any one of those schools.
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