Where do I start? To be perfectly fair, I'm going to give you the good, bad, and the honest facts about WCU. I read through some of the other reviews and some were accurate, some were exaggerated, and some didn't make any sense. To give you an idea what kind of student your getting advice from, I'm a hard working student who cares about grades and gets involve in school. At the same time, I do have a social life and go out on weekends. I'm a math and secondary education major and WCU is known to have an excellent education program which is true, especially for Elementary and Early Childhood Education programs. I had one education course during my first year here and my professor was terrible (don't take prof. Holingjak) but I could have just been unlucky. The math program on the other hand, is a different story. Even if you're not a math major, you're going to have to take a math course for a gen ed anyway. The department is TERRIBLE. This is the main reason why I'm transferring out of here after this spring semester. A lot of the professors are either old and need to retire or they really don't give a crap or both. Rely on www.ratemyprofessors.com when you choose your professors (for any class, any school). Of course, first semester you're not going to have control over that since the school makes up your schedule for you, but keep that in mind for the next few semesters. I know that business program is fairly good, so are the pre-med and nursing programs. Any kind of science is not very well known here, psychology/philosophy/sociology department is not very good either. Music program is well known (so is their marching band), and I haven't heard anything about their history and english departments.
WCU offers tutoring and professors have office hours but they don't tend to be as helpful as you can wish. Tutors can be from juniors of WCU to grad students and sometimes they have no idea what they're doing. In general, it seems like professors are not much of a help one-on-one; they just repeat what they say in class which doesn't clear up the confusion obviously.
Sports are not very big here. Intrumurals and clubs are a joke (I was in an intrumural team for volleyball and halfway through the semester, people stopped showing up for games). Our "gym" is the oldest, most pathetic thing you've seen. The closest thing to a gym is on south campus which you have to take the overcrowded shuttle buses to.
The school tries to promote activities and get students involved, but the turnout is always really really sad. Mainly because the kids here are more for partying on weekends or going home. There's another point: this school is a HUGE commuter school. It may not mean much to you if you're not a commuter, but it can easily effect you. The college turns into a ghost town, there is barely anything going on (except maybe a movie playing at our "theatre"), and when there's hardly any people or anything going, there's nothing to do. The nice thing is that there is a Septa running right near campus and you can take that to Exton, Norristown, or Philly. I spent quite a few weekends at Philly and at the mall in Exton. So make friends who stay on weekends are you're going to wish you commuted.
Safety on campus is pretty good (public safety can be a smartass, as I learned that today) but please, use your common sense at night. Don't walk alone off campus at 2AM when you're drunk out of your mind. I heard a couple rape situations in the beginning of my 1st semester right off campus. Travel in groups. Speaking of parties, everyone pays, girls and guys. Thursday nights are the loudest, then Saturdays and Fridays. Football houses are the trashiest and farthest away from campus. Frats are ok but go in groups. I suggest making friends with houses who throw parties. Drug use is not as crazy on this campus as other campuses, public safety says theyre trying to crack down on drinking but that's a joke. If you don't want to drink, that's also fine, there are other things for you to do (I think that goes for every campus). The town of West Chester reminds you of an old movie. There's an Eckerd and two decent restaurants. West Goshen is right next to WCU which has an Acme and a shopping center.
Oh and if it matters, the social atmosphere is like 13th grade. Guys just looking for action and girls giving it to them.I think that's all I can think of. Good luck.
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