Connecticut College

Date: Dec 05 2003
Major: Political Science (This Major's Salary over time)
Connecticut College is nothing but an overrated, four-year asylum for preppy, trust fund kids from

right outside of Boston

About two-thirds of the kids here are from mass, and are die-hard fans of the Boston Red Sox, and hence, share a common trait with their favorite team; they are eternal losers. Since the city, New London, is tiny and dirt poor, there isn't much to do there. So almost all of the social life at the college revolves around parties at the college. The party nights are Thursday and Saturday, and involve walking back and forth from one end of the campus to the other in search of kegs and floor parties. Drinking starts around ten p.m, and is almost always over by midnight, at which point kids generally head out to the Student Center, where there's almost always a school dance (till two a.m). A ton of kids actually enjoy hanging out in the lobby of the Student center and in the adjoining snack shop. That's their favorite part of the weekend. Most of the kids at the college are not sexually active, although they would claim otherwise. It's mostly kissing and heavy petting (doesnt that remind you of middle school?). Very few kids actually engage in oral gratification or intercourse. So, if that kinda social life excites you, then I guess this is your kinda college.

Academically, the school claims to be much better than it really is. Schoolwork is mostly busywork, not

applicable experience or education

If you went to a decent high school, and paid attention to your classes there, you probably already know everything that you'd be taught here. The number of things I have actually learned in classrooms at Conn are few and far between. The worst thing academically is that the professors here don't want to prepare you for a life after college. There aren't very many professors who'd help you if you are career oriented. Unfortunately, the education here doesnt prepare you for grad school either. How many kids from the college actually go on to harvard or yale or the other big name grad schools? They are also few and far between. For instance, the economics program here doesnt focus at all on math, whereas even the remotely decent grad programs in economics rely heavily on your understanding of math. So, if you graduate from Conn, you wouldnt have a decent chance of getting a good job or getting into a good grad school. This school prepares you for a life of mediocrity, and if that is what you want, hey this is your school.

The dorms are pretty good for the most part, except for Lazrus, where the rooms are smaller than prison cells, and for the Hamilton and Marshall where everything's falling apart. The South Campus dorms are great, and KB has tons of freshmen girls. All the dorms are coed, and except for a handful of floors, the floors and bathrooms are coed too. We used to have one of the hottest campuses in the US, and the girl-guy ratio was great too. In the last four years, that has changed somewhat, and the ratio has declined. More and more ugly girls are admitted into the school too, so that doesnt help matters either.

There are some outstanding professors here, so if you have already committed to the school, I suggest you take classes with Gallagher, Brooks and Brodeur for religious studies, Brodkin for history, Tian for government and Pack for economics. They are really good professors, and really nice people too. Besides them, I don't know too many other good professors, and have been disappointed with the teaching abilities and scholarship of most of the other professors.

The principles of shared-governance at the school are probably its best and most distinguished feature. Exams are self-scheduled, although faculty want that changed to scheduled exams. Also, the exams are unproctored. The J-Board is almost all students, with one faculty member in there. The cafeteria food is better than at many other schools I have been to, although after two years it starts to feel repetitive, and by the time you are a senior, you will order take outs pretty frequently. Unfortunately, if you don't have a car, your only options for food delivery are a couple of cheap chinese (MSG) places, and Dominos. If you have a car, drive to Mystic, where there are some pretty good restaurants, with quite some variety.

If you are 21, you can go into the college bar. It's small and cool, and underclassmen aren't allowed in. Neither are coasties (Coast Guard cadets), who come from across the highway to the college every weekend night. They ruin the parties, because you don't know them and don't want some random people at your party. The coasties are pretty desperate, and go for the ugly chicks. What that does though is cause a "hotness" inflation, whereby all the ugly chicks think they are hot, the decent-looking chicks think they are superhot, and the hot chicks think they are britney's sista! So, given the fact that they won't put out with you, and the farthest most of these girls would go is second base, you think it's worth it to spend all this time chasing tail? Dating is not very common, so you kinda stand out in the crowd if you are going out with some chick. So I suggest you find some girls who are willing to be fuck-buddies, and hang on to them for your entire four years.

In any case, I won't recommend anybody from my high school to go to Connecticut College. If you do, do it at your own risk :)