Ithaca College

Date: Jun 16 2004
Major: English (This Major's Salary over time)
I have mixed feelings about Ithaca, I came home and said that I loved it, but I suppose if I examine that emotion closely that has more to do with college life in general (freedom is a beautiful thing) and with the friends that I made more than things that are specific to Ithaca College alone. There are good things about it and there are bad things…

Campus: The campus is stunning in the fall and spring, it's huge and alive and wonderfully landscaped- except in the woods which are delightfully wild (check out the cross country course, it's great)…however, this is NY and the winter is long, and miserable, during which point the greenery fades away and you notice just how hideous most of the buildings are. The buidlings are kept in pretty good shape (particularly whalen, park, and the terraces- boothroyd is kinda crappy (carpeted hallway walls anyone?)but that doesn't stop it from being the best place to live.

Safety: Okay, so I feel incredibly safe here…though, I did have one rather alarming experience, however, I guess no where is perfect.

Resource use: I use the library and computer labs all the time, and they're great, but I've never used either of the pools. The gym is great, I worked out there all the time and it was groovy…they're picky about shoes though. Most valuable resource on campus? Without a doubt, the writing center. It's located in Park, and is an amazing place to take your papers for help, it's manned by professors and senior writing/english majors who are incredibly helpful. I took almost all of my papers to the girls there and got A's on every one I brought to them, not only to they help you correct spelling and grammar (and explain the rules for correcting it) but they go over paragraph length, structure, content and all sorts of other things.

Extracuricular activites: There are a ton…but they can be difficult to locate because some of them don't advertise very well, for example, I had a tough time finding the outing club, but IC players was very welcoming and I had a blast in rocky horror (they do it every year at halloween ^_^)

Social life: LIVE IN A FRESHMAN DORM!!! Seriously, they're great. The prearrival orientation is super helpful too, I made four friends at my july orientation and we're still tight now, which is pretty impressive. The one complaint here is that my group (and I hear this from a lot of people) sort of stopped trying to make friends after we found eachother, and I had a difficult time spreading out and meeting new people (outside activities helped, as did taking a freshman seminar class)

Surrounding city: Ithaca is pretty cool, it can be tough to find things and Kelly's is sleazy, but the city is very cool (though small). Actually, interesting tidbit…Ithaca is America's

most enlightened city

and is home to the personal monastry of the Dali Lama (you have to make an appointment to go though) yes, it's a hippie town, but I like that it's so open, be warned though- they aren't accepting of only hippies, there are a couple cults and supposedly a bunch of neo-nazis (though it's not like you run into these people) when they say they are open to everyone they mean it, they're even open to close-minded people (however that works).

English department: Okay, first semester ROCKED as far as classes were concerned- I really felt like I was learning tons of new things and that everything tied in beautifully and I still can't wait to teach the things I learned. My freshman seminar with Kathryn Machan was particularly impressive, I've never been so eager to do assignments before. I also really loved my intro to short story class. Second semester I was slightly less impressed, but intro to poetry with Kevin Murphy was fun. Overall though, even though I worked really hard I don't think it was as challenging as it could have been.

General complaints: It worries me that I don't know the standing of the english department and how other people view it. Ithaca costs too much. There are some people who are just not smart enough to be there…and that's really annoying.

Advice: Get involved in as many freshman activites as possible, IC after dark, the freshman housing, INVOLVED (free trips and hanging out with upperclassmen)- oh…and if you get put in temporary housing (which rocks if it's in the terraces- the rooms are humungous)make sure you find someone to help you move- DONT CALL A CAB- they charged me $60 to drive across campus twice.