the college post

[aamcnamara]

1. Abridged list of colleges I got into:
- Beloit College
- Lawrence University
- Smith College
- Mt. Holyoke College
(Listing colleges I did not get into is now mostly an exercise in Paths Not Taken, so I will not do it.)

2. Questions I have for you:
a. What do you know about these schools?
b. Did you go here?
(i. What did you like about it?)
c. Do you have friends who went here?
(i. What are they like?)
(ii. What do they say about it?)
d. Whether or not you went to these colleges, know people who did, know anything about them, etc.: if you went to college, what was your decision process like? What ended up being the deciding factor?

I am mostly just curious, but I will admit that my interest is not without selfish intent.

Comments

[araken.livejournal.com]

Congratulations!

Not sure if this helps, but when I was in college ('99 - '03), I corresponded a good bit with a student from Beloit; we were both amateur writers obsessed with Babylon 5 and geeky things in general. I've long since lost touch with her, but from what I remember she talked about the fandom community Beloit had, which put on a decent-sized SF convention every year.

I remember comparing it to my college, where half the frat boys had copies of Heinlein in their closets but wouldn't admit it publicly. :-)

[aliseadae]

Do you remember her name? I currently attend Beloit but many alumni stay connected with current students, particularly BSFFA (Beloit SFF Association) alumni and current students.

We no longer run the convention as people have decided it was too much work but we like to bring authors and SF people to campus when we can. We definitely still continue to run many SF related events. There haven't been as many writing things lately (it is mostly gaming now) but I think that might be changing. We have Babylon 5 on Friday nights! I enjoy it quite a bit.

[aliseadae]

You also might want to try the LJ communities bsffa_history and bsffa_alumni for keeping in contact with your friend. People at Beloit (or at least BSFFAs, though I've seen evidence of other students as well) use LJ quite a bit. This makes me happy.

[olivia-circe.livejournal.com]

I can speak at length about Smith and Mount Holyoke. Want to catch me on IM? asfrankl on gmail and oliviacirce on AIM. Also, Congrats! All good schools! <3

[aliseadae]

I attend Beloit! I know that Beloit is an excellent, laid-back place with good academics and many geeks with whom to socialize. As much as they do tend to spend their time gaming, most people here are really well-read in the SFF genres (err. BSFFAs at least.) We have good programs in anthropology and other things too. Um. that's not too specific. I know that people here enjoy their physics, biology, anthropology, english, computer science, art and modern languages majors. That is off the top of my head, though; I'm sure there are other interesting programs here.

What do I like about it here? Besides SF geekiness, I like that I can make references to academic or semi obscure things and most people get it. I like that the campus is very welcoming to everyone. I like that it is laid back. I like that there are many good departments and interesting classes offered. I like that I can work in the scene shop and take the classes that I've mentioned to you. (FYI, the ones I'm taking next semester) I like the community that I found in FYI.

My friends seem to like it here. People seem to be very close to their friends and generally happy. They enjoy their classes and departments.

When I was deciding between Beloit and another college, I considered the sort of feel that they might have. I thought about whether either college would have more of a focus on sports or on the arts. I thought about study abroad programs. I'd recommend considering specific factors but also the general feeling of campus.

Good luck! I hope this helped.