Major: Art - Grades are subjective; you will be compared to your class and sometimes other classes. Typically, the project creative restraints are not bad and sometimes workable with your professor's permission. It is sometimes impossible to get an A if you are not talented in that area of art. The Art History Professor tries hard and is a nice man, but while his knowledge is high, the transparency/ability to give that knowledge to students is awful and you will not know your grade at any point until finals time. The tests are massive and people fail even with hours upon hours of studying. His tests are luck of the draw I suppose. Art History classes are an area you want to transfer credits in if you can. Education: Has a mostly reasonable grading system, sometimes it appears their standards for writing are too high, but it is for the greater good. You will have many placement opportunities to get a good feel of how it might be before you teach and find out if you can/should be with that grade level.
Nursing/premed: The workload is burdening, but the preparation is exactly what you need. They often have tests or quizzes every week, but that is better than one huge midterm or final. They break up the material appropriately and tell you areas to study more if you are willing on your own time. This area suffers from the shorter semesters time that our university has.
Shorter semesters?: Yes 15-16 weeks if I remember correctly, and short breaks. If you live 7+ hours away, many breaks will not be of use to you. Campus life when a break happens is similar to the ghost town feel instead of the normal gold rush town feel. Having a car is nice at these times, so you can at least try to find something off campus- but usually you are stuck to do close to nothing. The trade off is that in the summer you will get out before may starts and have an easier time finding a summer job.
Campus Police: not a big safe feeling for me, I almost never see them on the job, and the few times I've needed them they have horrible response time or bad suggestions on injuries. I would say half or more are too unhealthy to actually stop or catch trouble if they needed to. But sure you can call them or visit the office...
Grounds crew and Janitors: Do so much work everyday. They make this campus look amazing (inside or out). Take some time to say hi, or thank them - they deserve it.
Student Government Association (previously student government organization): is actually a very competent group of elected teams that try to give us students a voice to upper-management. They deliver on some promises or learn that IWU in the end is a business and sometimes acts like a business instead of a compassionate university
Chapel - if you are like me, you are excited that the school embraces religion (even though it is a Christian university) and might be excited for chapel. Well I do not want to crush your soul but I am in a hard relationship with chapel. Chapel appreciation depends on getting good sleep and having a good attitude, so get good sleep and lose that morning attitude and you will be ok. The speakers are a little weak sometimes but they mean the best and the reality is they are pumping three of these out every week. The worship is fantastic, except that chapel worship is like the radio; you often hear the same songs repeated. Moreover, to me I will stop worshipping at times because they simply extend a song too long for my liking. Moreover, this is exactly it: YOU MAKE CHAPEL. If your head is there and your attitude is right, you will be fine. If you go in bitter, sometimes you are ok. However, if you are in a sour chapel mindset or a bitter mood you will likely hate chapel. AVOID that last sentence. Start right, preserver, and get as much you can out of it.
Food services- we can complain as much as our egotistical hearts desire, but we honestly have a great food choice. We have three separate areas to choose from. One (Mario's) specializes in pizza, and has pasta or salad options as other main meals (although I must caution the pizza should be viewed before purchased...you'll eventually understand). Another (Wildcat) has a Chinese wok focus, chicken and rice, and has good sides; or a quesadilla line and a burrito line; there is the grill with crispy chicken, grilled chicken, hamburger, cheese burger, and grilled cheese focus; OR the sub line with a Subway style build your own on flat bread, wrap choices, or bread choices. Still another, the actual main dining option of Baldwin, has its own focuses on main meals, and an always-possible cereal or pizza feature. Baldwin breakfast and late breakfast/ fat meal are the best meals offered in my opinion. The great thing is if you get tired, you can get something of the many options that are available. I have not even told you everything, but if you visit, you will go to Baldwin anyways.
Next to Mario's is an ice cream and smoothie type offer that is the only rival to juggernaut McConn Coffee Co. which will make you so happy when you have a 7:50 or any long class. McConn offers a music night called Crema featuring music of our own fellow students; it is an amazing Wednesday weekly event at night. McConn also offers parfaits that are delicious and invigorating. They both have healthy drink mixes and the ones you can count to stay awake. Hate lines? Want coffee quick? Bring a dollar and get a fresh brew, different fresh brewed coffee options and the sugar or sweetener options with your choice of half and half or milk additions.
Religion: Obviously everyone is allowed, but I would say that Catholics are overly criticized and stereotyped on campus.
Politics: As you can guess, the campus is highly Republican. There is a Republican group that has a lot of success with alerting the members of issues and going to republican events or meeting some semi-famous U.S. Politicians.
Food times - are mostly reasonable, except the weekends. Saturday has no breakfast. Sunday does not have breakfast either; again, it starts with lunch at 11:30am. Sunday you also have a big nothing open time from 1:15pm-5pm. Also if you wait to the last second on your meal choice: Wildcat mostly closes early if they can, so the option you went in for might be gone, Mario's is always a safe bet, but Baldwin is not worth it even the last 15 minutes. Baldwin after the first hour of breakfast and Lunch will not be as good, wait too long and the option either will be gone or will be there because it was a poor food selection choice. They typically literally remove the food a good chunk of time (I'd say 20minutes early is a fair statement) before they close - but they will still swipe you in... For cereal options, I suppose.Accreditation: Indiana Wesleyan University is an accredited university (important for post-graduation)!
Articles
