Grinnell College

Date: Feb 07 2012
Major: Sociology (This Major's Salary over time)
Grinnell is a magical place in the middle of nowhere. It's a liberal arts haven for all those quirky, geeky, smart, motivated, enthusiastic about learning, and eager to have fun. The academics are fantastic—professors are SUPER accessible (have had dinner at several profs' houses), classes are challenging, and the academic environment is supportive and fosters learning for the sake of learning. The Grinnell community is also absolutely wonderful—people are friendly, eager to help each other out, and the study body is diverse in more than just the race/ethnicity stats sense. Students are involved in a hundred different activities and that girl you know from swing dance club is likely to also be your student government senator and a physics tutor. Grinnellians are interdisciplinary in the truest sense and so passionate about what we do. The social life is certainly what you make of it—we are in the middle of no where Iowa, and so weekends are usually spent on campus or grabbing a movie/coffee in town every now and then. The college does a great job of bringing people to the campus though and is very cognizant of the fact that we are in the middle of no where. We have bands, concerts, comedians, guest lectures and a ton of events going on every weekend and very rarely (if ever) is there nothing to do. Some of my favorite Grinnell memories include mattress sledding in the humanities/social sciences building after hours, building a giant snow dragon with friends out on Mac field, stargazing out in the cornfields (quite literally), trying out rock climbing on the climbing wall one random Thursday night just because, going cross country skiing for the first time with several grinnellians I didn't know until that day, Harry Potter week, Mel Brooks movie marathons, and a slew of other random, nerdy awesome experiences. The social life is what you make of it—there is a party culture and if you choose, you can certainly partake in it. If you choose not to, that is also completely fine and there are plenty of people to hang out with and things to do. Personally, I've found it really refreshing to be able to hang out with one group of friends that does party some weekends and do fun sub-free things with another group of friends on other weekends. There's the freedom and flexibility to be who you want to be here and the campus culture is very supportive.