Calvin College

Date: Nov 15 2004
Major: Economics (This Major's Salary over time)
Calvin is really awesome. The profs are amazingly bright and well educated; I would say the vast majority of the profs I have had were very knowledgeable about current and related issues in their fields. They were also very supportive and encouraging, and always willing to help.

The biggest complaint I have about my education was the lack of econometrics work in the econ dept, which is something that is seriously needed for graduate school. So I was not as ready for that aspect of my grad studies as I would have liked to be. I think 04/05 will be the first academic year that econometrics will be offered as a course. In past years the course has been taught as an independent study but with around 6-8 students each time it is taught. I know the prof who teaches the class personally and he is both brilliant and very very nice.

He's a UMich PhD, and starting in summer of 2004 he heads Calvin's Center for Social Research. You can look him up on calvin's website under CSR.

They have top faculty there—folks with their doctorates from MIT, Princeton, etc—and a number of them have extensive experience in international business.

The thing about the econ dept is that it is joined with the business dept, so if your interested in doing more research and eventually going to grad school, it would be wise to make up your mind about what you'd like to do and speak up—they're very open and supportive and there a few research opportunities each year to work with the profs (including some research assistantships at the CSR).

I'm also an international student, and the int'l stu body (NOT including Canadians) has grown a lot in the past few years. A LOT of Korean and Korean American students (for a total of 4000 students Korean students I think number around 70 or close to that). Students from India and Africa, along with those from Korea, make up most of the int'l stu body.

Socially, I really don't see that much separation between int'l students and American students anymore. As far as I know most people there genuinely don't care about your race, religion, whatever, at least not nearly as much as they do about other things.

Go to Calvin expecting an excellent and tough education and a LOT of Christian discussion (most of which is optional), and take advantage of their excellent faculty. I don't know any other school or community where the faculty, staff, and people in general work so hard at what they do.