Saint Xavier University

Date: Apr 15 2011
Major: Education (This Major's Salary over time)
I completed both my undergraduate and graduate degrees at this school. It's come a long away in recent years, but SXU is still a commuter school that serves students from surrounding communities. This becomes apparent when you're looking for parking, which is minimal. It doesn't offer a UPASS for public transit, and partly because the school isn't really in a centralized urban lanscape like DePaul or UIC. The only way to get to SXU Chicago campus using public transit is to take CTA bus routes 53A or 103. Route 53A provides a connection to the orange line, and route 103 provides a link to the red line. Both routes are spotty at times, and it's best to use a bus tracker on a mobile phone to better manage your time. You won't find an "L" station within walking distance, but there's a Metra stop on 103rd and Walden Parkway by a Starbucks coffee shop in neighboring Beverly. This station offers plenty of parking and is also accessible by CTA bus route 103. There's no public transit overnight "owl" service to SXU; your best and least expensive bet is to take the red line south to 95th Street and catch a cab from there. This will cut your cab fare down to around $10 USD rather than $40 if took a cab from downtown or from the Midway Airport. All this information is provided in response to those who complain about the lack of social amenities at SXU and the surrounding community. SXU isn't a party school, but we're all human and we all feel the occasional need to socialize and unwind. The school falls short on this, and it would be in their best interest to build a student center in the near future. It's also apparent SXU wants to attract students outside of Illinois and the Midwest, but this isn't going to happen quickly enough if they keep failing to facilitate an environment where students can interact on a regular basis. Some professors have candidly expressed that a good postsecondary school should make an effort to attract as many people from different backgrounds as possible. This will allow for students to learn from each other, and not just from a professor in the classroom.