Grove City College

Date: Mar 28 2012
Major: Communications (This Major's Salary over time)
I write this review with the knowledge that this is my last semester at GCC. While I am transferring for a lot of different reasons, there are some good things about Grove City and I leave here with mixed feelings.

Pros:

The campus is beautiful. The architecture is lovely and the buildings, for the most part, are in good shape. MEP, the girls dorm, needs to be updated though. It's like a dungeon in there.

There are some really great people who go here, and I've made some lifelong friends. The past two years have been filled with a LOT of great memories because of the people here.

Cons:

1. The only major Grove City had remotely close to writing (besides just English) such as journalism, or anything artistic such as design or photography, is "communications," which is a very broad and superficial major. The classes are interesting, but they don't prepare you at all for my future, and there is only ONE class offered in journalism, and ONE class in photography. In addition to this, if you are a Communications major, you get mocked and disrespected by the rest of the student body because apparently comm majors have it so much easier than the rest of the students. So even if you are passionate about your major, and you work very hard, you will be looked down on just because of your major.

The people, although many are really nice, overall are the most judgmental group of people I've ever encountered in my life. It seems no matter what you do, someone will judge you for it. There is nothing to do in Grove City whatsoever, (the downtown is comprised of several barber shops and a chinese restaurant), so if you want to have any kind of social life, it makes sense to join a sorority or frat. But if you do that, then you will get bashed by everyone who is not greek, and a lot of other frats and sororities. Currently, the GCC Meme page and the "overheard" page attests to the judgement on campus. All the memes and posts are all posted in mocking of one group or another, and everyone gets offended and posts other mean posts. It is personally hard for me to be here because I am judged for my major and for my sorority. People openly mock both with no consideration for people who are affiliated with either, and take no time to get to know you as a person and simply tell people that they "hate" a certain sorority. Also, one girl was tanning in the GIRL'S quad in a bikini, and someone called campus safety on her. The amount of judgement is getting completely out of control. The student body is also very "clicky;" everyone has their own friend groups so you basically hang out with the same small group of people all the time.

Also, there is a lot of segregation between boys and girls. I am a very outgoing person, and I had a huge number of guy and girl friends in high school, but here I literally have 1 guy friend. Guys don't talk to girls here unless they are dating or engaged. Usually when people see a two people of the opposite sex together they assume they are dating, and most of the time they are.

The academics are intense. No matter how hard you study, you will still get the same (bad) grade that you would get if you didn't study. I know that I'm not the only one who experiences this because most of my friends, in all majors, have complained of the same thing. I have studied 15 hours for a single test, not a final or midterm, and still only gotten a C- on it. This creates the atmosphere of only trying to get by, not being interested in learning. Only one class in my entire career here has made me think and actually feel like I was learning new things.

Overall, Grove City is the right place for a lot of people. Personally, I am glad that I was here for the first two years because I grew a lot as a person and I learned how to deal with some very difficult situations, and I met some of the most amazing people. But not many people stay happy at Grove City; I am the fourth one of my initial group of friends to transfer, and another will most likely transfer next semester. Grove City is definitely a bubble, and it is hard to grow in your faith here because of all the labeling and judgement.