Valparaiso University

Date: Jan 13 2008
Major: Undecided (This Major's Salary over time)
I left after having some pretty nasty run ins with the gestopo like campus police dept. Now, I'm a nerdy and kind of intellectual type who never, I repeat, never, got into any trouble with the law before. However the campus police here have made my life absolute hell. I had 2 arrests and both times was thrown in the county jail(they do this for all students). Bail was several hundred dollars the first time. Phone calls home cost $1 a minute for your parents, yes they bill your parents for all the calls from jail. The second time the judge refused bail and I sat in county lock up for close to a week waiting for a hearing. My cell mates were all much older and had long arrest sheets of various types, some violent. At one point I was in a cell with 8 other men and only 3 bunks. They kept a small cell for the pedophile offenders next to mine, we could hear everything they said and believe me nobody sitting in a cell with 8 other guys wants to hear that kind of stuff. The campus police even beat up one of the Theology profs here for running a red light-ON CAMPUS. Another kid, who was beaten by the campus police, after being breathalized in his dorm room, is trying to take his case all the way to the Supreme Court.

So when they tell you it's a friendly campus for God's sake don't believe it. The county jail was just remodled, quite lavishly, on the proceeds from all the student arrests. The surrounding county is mostly farm so the University students are the jail's cash cow. And believe me, if you are here for 4 years, they will arrest you for something. All you have to do is roll through one of the myriad of weirdly positioned stop signs. Or if you have a drink, even if you are of age and off campus they will breathalize you the minute your foot hits the campus boundary and it's off to county jail for you! Even if you test out at like an .01 or something ridiculous like that. So in short, unless you are planning a life in a monastery or nunnery you would be wise to go elsewhere. The campus is pretty but the people who run the place are very, very, scary.