The University of Colorado - Boulder

Date: Jan 02 2008
Major: Other (This Major's Salary over time)
I spent one semester at CU and have now left the university. I applied there because of the beautiful Rocky Mtn setting and because CU still has a reputation as a laid-back "hippie" type school. While I would not consider myself to be a hippie I was drawn in by the idea of a down-to-earth environment with solid academics in my chosen field (environmental studies). Having now attended the school for a semester, I can say that the natural beauty and outdoor opportunities were certainly present, and the academics were adequate (but not as good as I'd expected or hoped), but the student body could not have been more different from what I expected.

As I mentioned, CU still has a reputation as a type of school that attracts laid back kids who like nature and the outdoors and care about environmental and humanitarian issues. This reputation is certainly fading, but it prevails nonetheless (I mean the REPUTATION prevails, not the reality). It is so far from the truth that I was literally taken aback when I found out what the student body was truly like. During four months at this school, I met not one individual who would fit the above description (

laid back kids who like nature…etc

). I came to realize that CU attracts a lot of high-maintenance, Nouveau Riche kids, the majority of whom are from wealthy suburbs of Denver, Chicago, Las Vegas, and various parts of CA. Some characteristics that could honestly describe the majority of people here: materialistic (very), self-centered, vain, clique-ish, selfish, immature, and perhaps most of all boring. They simply aren't chill kids, they're not fun to hang out with. A lot of the guys will want to tell you about their designer jeans and new snowboarding jackets, while others talk, non-stop, about how stoned they were last night. I have nothing against drinking and smoking but when people talk about it all the time it's just sort of lame. A lot of kids here seem to do it just so they can talk about it the next day. And the girls here are especially clique-ish and act like the girls I knew in junior high. I know several underclassmen high school girls from back home who are more mature than most of the girls I met at CU.

CU also has a reputation as a great party school, and like its reputation for having a chill, laid back student body, the party school rep is more myth than reality. This is not a school where you can find a party any night of the week. If you go out at night (even Friday or Saturday), more times than not you'll spend your time looking for a party, not actually attending one - along with a massive number of other kids who you'll meet just wandering the streets, searching for a party. There are frat parties, but these are virtually impossible to get into if you are not on the list. And they kind of suck anyway. House parties are quite difficult to find many nights, and a lot of them really suck. The party scene really kind of sucks overall, and you get the sense that a lot of kids participate in it just because it's the "thing to do." A lot of these kids are just desperately trying to keep up with the status quo here, something many of them are probably used to from back home in their exclusive gated suburbs. Definitely a lot of desperate characters, underneath it all - there is more peer pressure and exclusiveness among kids here than I experienced in high school, which definitely isn't what I am seeking in the college experience.

And I don't mean to rip on these wealthy suburban kids, truly I don't. It's just the type of people who are here, for the most part. There are, of course, other types here as well - this is a campus of close to 27,000 undergraduates, there are all kinds of people. But the general feel of the university, the focus of campus life, is definitely controlled by the majority, who fit my descriptions from above, and this really grows tiresome. I remedied this by taking long walks in the mountains, which are easily accessible, or finding some good books to read or chatting with interesting people who I met from time to time. I also had several friends who were not bad kids to be around, and had some good times. But overall, CU really isn't a nice place if you are someone who likes to be challenged intellectually, who enjoys being around interesting people, who shies away from rampant materialism, who sees inherent value in the natural world, who is done with high school and ready for the real world, who ever thinks about things or issues outside of yourself. Those are the people who I'm writing this review for; this is a warning for you, because I would have appreciated a similar warning before I enrolled in the university.

If you are interested in coming to CU because you've heard it is a hippie school, because you expect the student body to be fun and laid back, because you are a nature-lover or environmentalist and expect to find like-minded people, or because you want a strong academic climate: proceed with caution.