Bucknell University

Date: Nov 06 2009
Major: Computer Science (This Major's Salary over time)
I would like to say that I really thoroughly enjoyed my first year here. As a freshman, not having a lot of schoolwork is a great opportunity. People are usually looking for meeting new people, and you are always welcome to clubs & societies. This was my first month impression. Then came the second semester of freshman year, and things started to change. (Or I started to realize maybe..?)

As an international student, I can say that there is no such thing as diversity at bucknell. It is just a utopia that is being advertised as if it's real. About 90 percent of the campus is typical rich White Americans. This situation directly affects the social life too. Socially, you have to party like a White American, play long hours of pong at downtown houses, or grind on a girl wearing a spandex and flipflops to a party, listen to fratmusic.com. It seems during the freshman year that joining a frat is the only way out for guys, but it's not even true. The only change is the people around you.

Also, I would like to note that there is a strict cast-like system that governs the frat life. Richer people will only hang out at richer frats, middle class people will only hang out at middle class frats. For girls, what adds on to this is how attractive you look. If you aren't blond, there is something wrong with you, if you don't have UGG boots, you've gotta be kidding me, every girl in bucknell has UGG boots. This is pretty much like an extended edition of high school.

Another word on architecture.. The campus really looks very neat and clean, but inside the buildings is an architectural mess. Whoever draw the floorplans of the older buildings is either not an architect, or was still in grad school. The newer buildings like the O'leary center, or THE KLARC GYM are simply made for the inconvenience of the students. These buildings resemble a small maze, you have to walk ridiculous distances to get from point a to point b in the gym, which could have easily taken you 10 steps. The elevation of some floors don't match with others in some buildings, so you randomly have to go two steps down, pass through a door, and go three steps up if you again want to go from point a to point b.

Also, you should note that you as a freshman will not be able to:

Bring a car to campus. We don't have enough car parking.

Join a frat/sorority

Pick your own dorm / roommate

Pick your own meal plan (You have to eat the horrible caf food for a high cost)

Live downtown @your own house / rent a house.

Party with the cool people (unless you know the person who throws it) (this makes sense though, as a measure of risk reduction / not giving alcohol to random minors)