New College of the University of South Florida

Date: Jul 11 2010
Major: Linguistics (This Major's Salary over time)
No Greek life, zero, so if that's what you wnat, read no further.

I transferred in from another Florida state school, a generic university. I had experience there as well as Comm College experience. Lots of transfers in because 25% of the student body drops out in the first year, they are totally lost. You need to know what you like (and what you don't like) and be an independent thinker.

NC is decidedly different. If you know what you want to do or you have a passion for something and you want to investigate it further, then NC might work for you. Nobody is going to tell you what to do or how to achieve that dream, you have to figure it out by yourself. HINT: It helps to look at traditional college catalogs and discover what kind of classes you need to achieve your goals. However, the good part is that you as a student designing your won curriculum have the ability to tailor your curriculum to your own desires. Lots of opportunities to pursue research (travel) and obscure things you can't find at big universities, IF YOU HAVE THE MOTIVATION TO DO SO!!!!

Say that you are really good with writing (most people at NC are) but you are also interested in chemistry. You can take more classes in those 2 areas and bypass other classes (like psychology, for example) and write your Senior thesis on

Technical Writing for Chemistry Textbooks

or something like that. Or you want to study orchids and you are also fascinated with hieroglyphics. You can do self-study in hieroglyphics and study botany under Meg Lowman (she's really famous).

NC has a lot of pompous blowhards who spout "big words" to sound intellectual but part of the reason is that you are around a bunch of academics and it is like being in France, everybody is speaking the same language. When you go off campus and people start speaking everyday English (and poor grammar) it's a shock, and you start appreciate the NC community. Faculty are the same, a bunch of academics who are lost in their own worlds and really scatterbrained but that's the same everywhere.

There are no collegiate athletics there so if you want sports you are on your own, there's fencing and water sports, hiking with friends ,that kind of thing.

If you want to go to NC then I suggest you come visit for a weekend and check it out. At first it might rub you the wrong way but it kind of grows on you, there are some normal people here (they look normal and dress normal but let's face it, deep down inside they are a bit odd).

If you are a Science person yes the labs are primitive, no better than a good high school (no atom splitters or anything like at MIT or Stanford!) but there is more flexibility in your projects and plenty of lab rats (the human kind) to encourage you. Plus you can work at your own pace on your own projects.

Sarasota's okay, lots of old people, not the best nightlife but it has Whole Foods and an okay downtown and the water. HOT, as in heat. I hear that a lot of people who go to NC and then leave come back to Sarasota, they hate it when they go to school here but after going to other places in the US the end up back in Sarasota, so that must say something for the town.