The College of Charleston

This is a great mid-sized liberal arts school where there is a lot of space to grow and shape your future with you in complete control. Charleston is a visually beautiful city (pastel houses and azaleas everywhere!) with a steadily growing fine arts, fashion and independent music scene. The city is very welcoming to college students of the undergrad and graduate type. The school is easy to navigate as the campus is condensed to a mere 7-8 blocks of the city. The school is also generous with scholarship and grant money. There are many work study and on campus job opportunities that are flexible and well paying for those that are looking for them. There are 21 major student organizations on campus and 64 smaller ones. If you are into greek life its relevant on campus but if you aren't rest assured you will not be in a minority if you are not too hot on that deal. College of Charleston's campus is safe with public safety officers on duty all around, note the actual campus is safe not the city of Charleston, these officers can only take care of you ON CAMPUS. Oh yeah moderately warm weather during the school year if you are looking for that kind of thing and a 10 minute drive to the nearest beach and hundreds of great uniquely Charleston restaurants, shops, gardens, museums and historic sites if you are also into those things.

DOWNSIDES:

Some of the stubborn faculty you will run into once you declare a major and commit to a department. Some faculty tend to say racist, classist, sexist comments in order to discourage students from taking certain courses or picking up certain minors or even looking at certain graduate schools! Not every faculty member or professor is as supportive as they should be, or respectful to students' personal choices and decisions. You will come across at least one if not two assistant professors or advisors or head's of departments that will try to turn your plans from what you want help or advice to do into what they would rather see you doing. Stick to your intuition! Don't be discouraged!

Other downsides include a close minded predominately upper middle class, white, female, able bodied, heterosexist/hetero-normative and Christian campus. Cultural, Religious, Class and Racial Diversity is HIGHLY lacking at College of Charleston and this causes underrepresentation across the board. It also its the root of far too many micro-aggressions (some macro aggressions too) that make attending the school EXTREMELY unpleasant if you don't fit into 5 of the 6 categories above.

The out of state fees are a common complaint because of the lack of state scholarship money (a possible $14,500) these students are not eligible for in addition to nearly 12,000 diff in tuition for instate and out of state.

The biggest downside about College of Charleston is the apathy of the students. The majority of students are not motivated to achieve greatness, create social change, improve anything or work creatively towards anything positive. Very few students are hardworking intellectuals that are supportive of their peers who are also bettering themselves. The slacker population is high at CofC which is surprising because every year the incoming classes are filled with more and more high achieving individuals.