Furman University

Date: Jan 06 2009
Major: Art & Design Department (This Major's Salary over time)
I thought Furman was what I was looking for in a college. I was wrong.

The quality of education is decent; people like to complain about the workload as if it is the hardest thing in the world, and while there is a lot of work, I wouldn't say the actual difficulty of it is as impossible as you might hear. It's more that you have to be willing to put in a whole lot of time. The phrase

Ivy League of the South

gets thrown around a fair bit, which is kind of silly.

Classes were a mixed bag, with a fair few average professors but also some truly wonderful ones; things can sometimes get frustrated by either the handful of bad professors (come on, every school's got 'em), or more often the students in the classes themselves.

The main thing about Furman, to me, is how very superficial it is. Everything looks wonderful on the surface, from the carefully maintained campus grounds to the girls dressed in heels and pearls at their 8 a.m. classes. As others have said, this school looks great on paper, and is fantastic at selling itself through tours and pamphlets, but the reality is mixed. There is very little diversity in the student body, and this grated on me more and more with every passing year. A lot of rich, conservative, ultrareligious kids. Growing up in the South, I thought I was used to being in the minority just because I was a liberal, but Furman took that feeling to a whole new level. Complete socioeconomic and cultural monotony. The nickname "The Bubble" is very deserved; Furman is its own little world. I went stir-crazy enough that my first job after school was in another country entirely, and I burned out on academia despite previous plans to stay in school for a very long time.

The school administration is most concerned with two things: looking fantastic and glossy from the outside, and obtaining as much money as possible. The leaps in tuition increases just over four years were absolutely insane; scholarships are given in fixed amounts, so although I went in on a half-ride, I left on about a quarter-ride. There are a lot of expensive beautification projects - and granted, the campus is gorgeous, but we used to joke about how half our tuition went straight to the industrial-strength leaf blowers and a few more swans for the lake.

I can't say my experience was completely bad. I liked my department a lot - I actually had never planned to pick that major but got sucked in, while my original department of choice was a disappointment - and I did have a small but close circle of like-minded friends that probably kept me from transferring out to another university. My life would be radically different right now had I gone elsewhere. But if I could do it again I would probably choose a different university. Certainly I don't recommend this school to people without reservations.

Think very, very carefully about what you value in a college experience before coming here.