Louisiana Tech University

Date: Sep 11 2004
Major: Unknown (This Major's Salary over time)
First: LIKE WHERE YOU GO TO SCHOOL! No matter how good the academic coursework, if the school does not help you grow as a person, allow you to find yourself, allow you the freedom of wide open thought, or allow the opportunities to meet many different kinds of people with many different ways of thinking, then you probably should go somewhere else. This means you should to the best of your ability decide just what kind of person you really are BEFORE you attend a college or university. Otherwise you will be either(a) unhappy there, or (b) not grow to your own potential as a person. In fact, I will go as far as to say that you should postpone entry into college for AT MINIMUM one year. That way, you will have time to explore different campuses over that time period, thereby decreasing the chance of your being at a college or university that you will either be unhappy at or one that fails to let you grow to your personal potential.(Personally, I'd reccommend visiting one a month at minimum. But that's just my opinion). Had I known from the start what I knew now, I would have bypassed Louisiana Tech from the start.

That's not to say Tech is all bad. It's got a solid, if not elite, reputation academically (the engineering programs have a QUITE good reputation!). The people are nice, although pretty cliquish. If you're not a super party animan type, then you might give this school a chance (The party scene is definitely staid compared to the typical Southeastern Conference schools). The Greek system is well-developed, but doesn't overwhelm the student culture to the extent you see, at, for example, Ole Miss. The town of Ruston is charming, family oriented, and has a pretty good relationship with the university and its students.

So, just why was Tech so wrong for you then? Mainly because I'm by nature a highly inquisitive, cosmopolitan person who craves intellectual stimulation. Probably the biggest negative about Tech is that it's geographically isolated, which makes it culturally isolated. Aside from racial diversity, there is not a whole lot of variety in personality and appearance among the students here. Furthermore, the student body is made up OVERWHELMINGLY of native Louisianians and natives of the parts of neighboring states close to the Louisiana line (E. Texas, S. Arkansas, S & W Mississippi). If your idea of a great college experience necessarily includes even only a moderately cosmopolitan experience, then Tech probably is not for you. In addition, this is a small town in a relatively poor region with quite high unemployment and underemployment (though Ruston itself is a monument to prosperity by comparison!) So if for some reason you either want or need to work your way through school, Louisiana Tech is definitely not the place for you. The county/parish has only 40,000 people but 10,000 college students, so there is definitely NOT enough jobs for every student who wants one. If it's a job you need, find a university in a big city.

Overall, Tech is not a particularly horrid place, depending on the type of person you are. In fact, academically and socially, it probably was the best school in the state for me (LSU's party school/sports fan school atmosphere really turned me off from there). Unfortunately, it did not offer me the essentials that, in hindsight, I realize were vital to me.

So why did you stay there al that time? The answer is two-fold: (a) I didn't want to spend money on out of state tuition (itself a bad move in hindsight) and (b) I never realized how starkly different people from the N. La. area were from even other areas in the South. It wasn't until I went to grad school in Memphis that I realized the sharp differences in cosmopolitanality between the urban and rural south (I though New Orleans was only a unique exception).