St John's College

Date: Feb 28 2011
Major: Other (This Major's Salary over time)
Obviously, the fundamental program of St. John's College is the Great Book Program, which is also what SJC is famous for. Yes, that's the only thing here. Keep this in mind and you will understand how every class goes.

OK. Above is just a brief introduction of St. John's. I am a brilliant student in science and math (Straight As from high school and 800s in SAT subs), but I came here first after graduated from high school in that I believed I can learn how to think academically here. However, it turned out to be a huge mistake for me: I am not able to get inspired here; some talkative person ruined my classes; extremely subjective grading system; huge academic level differences among students; etc. I think this is a place more likely to serve for those people who are around average. The educational idea of SJC is excellent but the average student body is the most influential drawback. Those are just facts of St. John's. As for me, learning how to think only happened in Aristotle, Plato, Alexandra's seminar reading time and not in any class unless I got better tutors in my Freshman year. How about other classes? Insipid. People usually keep talking about valueless or superficial points, which indicate the depth they think. Personally, I am more interested in deep thoughts than just talking for the sake of speaking in class. For math and science classes, there are even fewer good points raised up in class. Hence, I don't usually speak in Math and Lab class, even though hearing them debating on an easy problems needs more patience. Some times, tutors are not qualified for some classes, and in return, students became their test subjects. My freshman lab tutor was not able to see my points in class and I kept let the class discussion cooling down. Then, I got a C, not even enough for transferring to a reputed college. What a shame! Math class is a little bit better than lab. At least, it's more focused. We've learned Euclid, Ptolemy, Apollonius, etc. Things are going slowly. Even though, doing one or two easy propositions in one and half hour is not uncommon. It's after all a history class under the shell of mathematics. Anyway, if you are of my kind, don't come to SJC. It will be an afflicting experience. I've made my decision to transfer to another place after sophomore year. I've suffered enough since the week I came in.

A good thing is a lot of senior tutors here have very good education background. Chatting with them is such a joyful thing and so will I get inspiration.

Those mentioned above are just on academic aspect and here are something about student life. The small community motivates different people mingle together: nerdy, crappy, clumsy, smart, thoughtful. Some people are nice but some are not. A minority of the students are not self-disciplinary. Student activities are good: football, basketball, hockey, dodge-ball,ski trips and so forth. Nonetheless, few of them are excellent. I mean, few people attending those are really good at them. Don't expect you will have some friends who are experts in a field. They will probably not come to St. John's.