Western Carolina University

Date: Mar 05 2014
Major: Anthropology (This Major's Salary over time)
Western Carolina is certainly not a place for everyone. I've heard all the sayings about college, and tried to take all the advice - I tried to get involved, be social, and make friends any time I was given a chance. The people here are just not people I'd want to make friends with. I'm - and I know I'm not the only one here - a very open-minded, pro-equal rights person, and it seems that everyone here isn't just close-minded, but rude and ignorant. People tell me about the "southern charm" and "southern hospitality" I was going to experience up here, but I got a bunch of people looking at me weird and treating me like shit because my family is from up north. I try to be out there with my equal rights beliefs, and people ask me if it's because I'm gay with a silent sneer and a condescending attitude. The LGBT club got shut down on campus because we "didn't have enough members," but God knows we have plenty of sports booster parents. I've heard incredibly sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, even Islamophobic comments here, and no one seems to think that's a bad thing - people laugh about it. I wasn't expecting to come to college and immediately get accepted, but I wasn't expecting to hate my experience so much that I dread getting up every morning. I've seen people refused service because of the color of their skin, their sexuality, their gender. I've heard more slurs here in the last two years than I've ever heard in my life. Never before have I felt so shamed to not be christian. The only reason I stayed for so long was for the exceptionally quality education. However, I have yet to have a professor that wasn't white.