Meredith College

I went to Meredith College to study fashion design. I quickly realized that because there were no technological resources at the school, I would major in fashion design and marketing ( in order to receive some education in business). So rasther than gatting a sub standard design education, I received half of a substandard education. Many of the students at the school are ignorant and under-educated, because the school is not hard to get into and many have been educated in surrounding public schools. This makes for some painfully ridiculous seminars in subjects like world history or political science. I never was trained on a single design software program, nor was I exposed to any business software. I never looked at a business plan or was challenged by a case study. The worst part of this education was the lack of opportunity after I finally got out. There were absolutely no business affiliations with the school for students to intern with, and subsequently no job offers or training programs uponp graduation. This school's design program is a disaster, and a very expensive one.

2nd Year Female -- Class 2005

Friendliness: A+, Education Quality: F

I actually grew up in Raleigh and lived in NC my entire life. It made a lot of sense for me to go to Meredtih College, being as I participated in piano competitions there when I was little and they accepted a tuition grant..so I had an awesome financial situation. I generally love RALEIGH. I saw a lot of the same people, however, I left Meredith after 2 years because I kept giving it chances each semester, really hoping that things would get better...but they didn't.

Before I entered college, I suffered from severe depression, but I went for it anyway. I ended up withdrawing from my first semester because I wanted to explore with a variety of classes, but my faculty advisor skipped straight to the gen ed and i was absolutely miserable and not interested in anything. There are a mix of girls there... girls with lots of moral, and girls with not many. It's a college that's absolutely DEAD on weekends. Most of the girls leave school, go over to NC State..it's extremely weird and quiet, there might be like 5 people for breakfast on Saturday mornings.

Because I held a job at a restaurant 4 nights a week, in addition to being a student, I honestly feltl like an outcast. My RA's were ALWAYS mean to me because I could never attend hall socials or hall meetings. I always felt bad because I wasn't into all their traditions; i was a person who led my own life and didn't want to perform skits or go to picnics.

The halls were a sleep by 10pm during the week. And being reallyyyy individual and open-minded, I found many of their rules were restricting. The majority of my best friends are guys and they couldn't really come over and hang out unless it was in an open-door parlor or outside in the grass. I once got sent to the "Honor Council" for having my guy friend help me move a TV up to my room on a Tuesday night at 9:30 because it wasn't "boy hours."

I felt like it was very clicky and now that I"m at community college, I actually connected better with the working-middle class students there.

Don't get me wrong, Meredith is a beautiful school. There's a lot of lecturers that come. They can baby girls a little bit. If you aren't feeling well, you can just email your teacher to excuse yourself for absenses. I think that the base of my horrible experience was due to my faculty advisor...I got screwed up every single semester and constantly withdrew and I didn't feel like I could experiment with different things. It was a very proper environment, I still felt sheltered when I was there. But after 2 1/2 years, I'm definitely transfering out.

2nd Year Female -- Class 2010

Campus Aesthetics: A+, Education Quality: C-