Whether it’s small and private, or small and private and religious, small schools hide so many little secrets of awesomeness. From knowing your professors on a personal level, to having a tight-knit community, to only having to walk 10 minutes to get across campus, attending a small university is a really cool deal. So here’s 15 things that people at small (oftentimes religious) schools will understand.
1. Study abroad: It’s appealing and glorious, but it takes your best friends away from you for three months, and when you decide you want to take a three-month trip of a lifetime, it forces you to rethink your entire schedule.
2. Participation points: They’re a student’s best friend and worst enemy. If you like skipping class, think again, because even if participation is only five percent of your grade, that could be the difference between an A and a B.
3. Chapel hour
Depending on your school, chapel hour can also be a blessing or a curse. If you’re required to attend three chapels per week, it can be pretty tough to fit into your schedule. But, if it’s not required, then you basically have a free hour each week to study, hang out with friends, or…oh yeah…go to chapel.
4. The library isn’t open all night: Not even during finals…
5. Really great dorms
We have lived out entire four years in amazing housing, but we don’t even realize it. Our dorms are mansions compared to the Cal States or UC’s. When our freshmen class is the largest in history, we think it’s CRAZY that some students are three to a room, but our friends at Cal Poly SLO know all-too-well that three to a room is normal…top bunk.
6. One Dining Common
We have one place to eat, but, normally it’s not overly crowded.
7. Professors who know your name: They’ll call you out in class, pass your papers back, and know if that was you who failed the exam. But it’s still really helpful when you get to know a professor you like on a more personal level, especially if you’re looking for a letter of rec later on.
8. Waking up 10 minutes before class: The campus is so small it takes, like, five minutes to walk across, so rolling out of bed, throwing on some real pants, and dragging your back-pack to class can truly be done at the last minute.
9. No one knows about your school
But everyone in your area loves your school.
10. Freshmen wearing other college’s sweatshirts: You might have done this freshmen year, you might not have. The young, naïve freshmen assume that the school is small, so it must be lacking spirit. But that is not so, the upperclassmen do frown upon this act.
11. Running into 10 of your friends when you walk across campus: It makes you feel like a rock star knowing half the people you see.
12. One-floored library
There no such thing as “fifth floor is the quietest floor” or “second floor is for group study.” As a small university, there’s study rooms and color coded zones. So don’t you dare talk with your friends in the red section, because that’s what the yellow zone is for.
13. Sports teams have to drive to a high school to practice: *cough* track and field *cough*
14. A freshman class over 500 is HUGE
They’re climbing in your windows, they’re snatching your seniors up. Tryin’ to recruit em to a school with not enough dorms to accommodate the mass amount of eager college freshmen.
15. Male to Female ratio: Why does it feel like I’m surrounded by all women? Probably because the male:female ratio is somewhere upwards of 30:70.