The College of Wooster

Date: Dec 10 2009
Major: Political Science (This Major's Salary over time)
The School: Academically, the course work is decently challenging if you pick a decently challenging major. Political Science (especially Political Theory), and the hard sciences rank up there. Communications…not so much. Lots of reading and writing with very little busy work. It is a liberal arts school but YOU have to make it liberal arts—very few General Education requirements including no math requirement for some majors. ie. if you transfer, you can almost loose a year making that up.

The faculty for such a small school is great. My professors always have open office hours. They're intelligent and no classes are taught by TAs. However, the entire curriculum seems bent on writing your Independent Study, not succeeding in the long term. Most people end up graduating here with little to no work experience that extends beyond working at the College. It is hard to compete with schools near big cities which have internship databases, large Alumni recruitment, and access to internships during the school year. Also, if you don't write an Independent Study with honors, you don't graduate with honors. It doesn't matter if you have a 4.0—you won't get the yellow cords on your neck if you don't write your I.S. well.

The town is horrible. It starts off charming for about two weeks. The campus is two blocks long and you're essentiall STRANDED without a car. If you have a car it gets slightly better becuase you can drive 30 minutes on a two lane road to get to Akron, and 45 minutes to get to Cleveland. There are hostilities between the some townies and the students, which last year resulted in a student getting shot at. Other students have gotten beaten up. Small town does not equal saftey. Two years ago, while students were participating in a school sanctioned tradition of filling the arch, public saftey and the local police department came in to break it up. They brought the canine unit and tazors. I spent the night bailing my friend out of the local prison because a cop was convinced a snowball had been thrown at him. Public Saftey department spends most of their time busting underage drinking and putting parking tickets on cars.

BUT the school does acknowledge that there is nothing to do. There is a bowling alley in the basement of the student center, they hold concerts and bring in comedians. It is a valiant, valiant effort for such a small school, but there is hardly something to do every night. Extracurriculars are very easy to get involved in, and there is a 'Scot Spirit Day' at the beginning of every year to make Freshman feel welcome by having every club/organization have a table. Greek life is lacking—they stay in dorms, and are not nationally recognized.

The Campus IS BEAUTIFUL. The library is unrivaled for a school so small, and—because small schools don't have it all—they are in a consortium with other schools in Ohio. So if they don't have a book, they can get it. Kauke Hall is like having class in a Barnes and Noble. Some of the Science buildings are a little worse for wear but the humanities have it made.

Socially, the people here are very nice and laid back. Very down to earth and worldly for such a small school, with many people from different religions and nationalities. But everyone is very stressed out 99% of the time, particularly (obviously) seniors who are writing their Independent Study.