Vincennes University

Date: Feb 20 2011
Major: Music - Performance (This Major's Salary over time)
I messed around in high school too much because I had a severe authority problem and half of my teachers were idiots in the 25-36 age range. Needless to say I wound up at Vincennes with an IQ of 136 and extremely high placement scores. A large majority of the kids down here are essentially here to get heavily intoxicated on a daily basis and to sell drugs. I'm a music major so I'm used to this kind of behavior, but wow…seriously? That being said I've met some spectacular people here as well. Walking around at night can be a bit stressful with all the gangs near campus (stay off of the bricks at sundown) and all the local meth-heads. The police are extremely intrusive down here and really just need to chill about kids having parties on a college campus. It's a dry campus so no alcohol in the dormitories and they enacted a smoking ban on campus except for in designated areas. No one adheres to the smoking ban (including the teachers) and you can walk around puffing away without anyone bothering you. I think most of the natives in this town are hooked on the dope and most of them are stupid and show it. I've had nothing but trouble with my electric, cable, and water and the people at those respective companies don't seem to be doing their jobs or care about it in any way. The buildings on campus are pretty well maintained on the inside and out but the surrounding town doesn't do the campus justice at all. The financial aid department will screw you over every chance they get so make very very very sure that you verify everything yourself before attending school. The teachers are all pretty nice and helpful but there are some that are just mean and overly enthusiastic about giving homework for absolutely no reason. Teachers will drop you if you miss too many classes but it's very possible to skip a majority of them and still pass the tests…Several classes I've had we've just sat in there and basically tried to do something to keep our minds occupied because there's really no reason to be there. Some of the teachers have the "I hate my job" mentality and rarely show up or hold a class for the entire duration. I've heard some horror stories about the dormitory life from fellow class mates (let's just say some of the students have been to prison) my advice is to wait until the admissions department's greed gets the best of them and they start stacking 3-4 people to a dorm room and then get an apartment off-campus. This will actually SAVE you money as well. This is a decent transfer school if you're sick of living at home and want to experience college life from a campus rather than traveling to Ivy Tech from your home. The campus is rather small which has it's advantages and disadvantages, most of the kids on campus are relatively friendly and most student-rented houses are within walking distance. I should also probably mention there have been about two stabbings, a student shot at in one of the housing halls, more than a few robberies, and an accidental overdose death of a student close to campus since I have been here. I'm not making that up, I was a journalism major. Vincennes doesn't have a football team and if you're not of African-American descent don't plan on playing basketball. There are very few fraternities and even fewer of those fraternities have houses. The records department mislead me about 4 times when I went to change my major and I ended up having to figure it out for myself because they wouldn't and were incapable of helping at all. The non-teaching faculty are really just rude, incompetent, and lazy. They beat around the bush on every subject and then when you haven't handled something they act like it's your fault. The school has the budget of a large American high school rather than a University so I wouldn't expect many conveniences. There are really NO social options in this town. There's a bowling alley, a couple of bars, and a Wal-Mart…that's really about it. Prepare to spend long nights fighting off boredom. If you're the outdoorsy type there is a large park 2-3 miles from the north end of campus with several miles of trails, fishing on the wabash, and affordable cabin rentals. There are a couple of decent music shops in town and The Record Cellar is great for music lovers, he's got some hard to find stuff along with lots of shirts, incense, pipes (you'll have to ask discreetly in the back), vinyl, and posters. The main part of town about 1/2 mile off of campus actually does have some really cool mom n' pop shops with friendlier people than the rest of the town.

I advise getting your grades up while you're here because after a year of this you'll be ready to get the hell out.