Chapman University

Date: Apr 09 2008
Major: English (This Major's Salary over time)
Lets see, where do I begin?

About the only positive attribute I can apply to Chapman is that I met some of my closest friends here, and even that seemed almost by accident. The majority of people attending Chapman are from Southern California, but the friends I made were all like me: They lived somewhere other than SoCal and we bonded after getting fed-up with the lack of things to do during the nights and weekends. Chapman brings new meaning (or hell, probably created the term)

Weekend Commuter School.

Since roughly 65-70% of the students live somewhere in Southern California, the campus is dead after 12pm on Fridays (when the SoCal residents go home) with no sign of life again until roughly 6pm on Sundays when the parking lots start to fill up again.

1. Friendliness:

The faculty in my department was friendly for the most part. As were professors in other departments for the elective classes I took.

2. Competitiveness:

Chapman's only claim to "competitiveness" is in its neverending quest for name recognition outside of Southern California. So far, they're not doing a very good job, but maybe that's just as well.

3. Faculty Accessibility:

Faculty does a decent-enough job of being available if/when you have questions. However, I've taken high school classes that were harder than most of the English lit courses I took at Chapman, so I didn't really need to contact my professors all that much.

4. Creativity:

If its going to bring name recognition to Chapman, they're all for it.

5. Busywork:

The only challenges I received were from the head of the journalism department. Then again, the "challenge" was trying to stay on top of all the busywork we were given.

6. Scholastic Success:

If you work the system, you'll do fine. That is, if that's how you want to earn your degree…

7. Quality of Program (Major):

I was an English major, and they like to hand out B's. If you pursue an English degree, be prepared for lots and lots of B's.

8. Perceived Campus Safety:

I worked for the school's newspaper, "The Panther." It was a constant struggle for us to get any specific stats relating to crime on campus from Public Safety. Apparently (they claim) because Chapman is a "private" institution, they didn't have to release stats about violent crimes on campus (not that many happened, being in the middle of Orange County…), but there were numerous rumors of rapes taking place all the time. If you're a bleach-blonde surfer girl from Newport or Coto (or hell, if you're a woman period), you might want to take that into consideration.

9. University Resource Use:

The library's okay, but there were several times I had to make a trip up to CSU Fullerton to use their library to obtain books I needed to reference for term papers.

10. Campus Aesthetics:

CU could stand for

Construction Unending.

There's always something being built/re-designed on campus, and more often than not, its impossible to take a direct route to any buildings because nine times out of ten, the construction is blocking the most direct route to the building containing your English class.

11. Campus Maintenance:

There's not much to maintain, but the janitors sure love blasting the hell out of the concrete with the high-pressure water hoses. With as much water as they spray on the concrete, you'd think all those allegations that Southern California's running out of freshwater were false.

12. Individual Value:

If you're from a rich family in Newport or Coto; Drive a Lexus/Bimmer/Hummer/Benz; Have parents with deep ties to Orange County business/government, you'll have no problem fitting in.

13. Social Life:

Do you like going to loud, obnoxious parties that are usually busted by the Orange PD on an average of twenty minutes after said party starts? Oddly enough, the partying occurs on Thursdays, because everyone goes back home on Fridays.

14. Extracurricular Activities:

I decided to pledge a fraternity after two years because I ran out of things to do on campus that didn't involve belonging to a campus clique.

15. Surrounding City:

If you decided to attend Chapman because Orange is the "Antique Capital of Southern California," you'll never run out of things to do. For those of us who don't care for antiques, or Disneyland, or shopping at South Coast Plaza, ho boy…buy a Gameboy.