Hendrix College

Date: Aug 27 2014
Major: Anthropology (This Major's Salary over time)
I don't want to be too harsh, since everyone I know has had a wonderful experience at Hendrix and can't say enough positive things about their time there, but for me, I never felt like I belonged or that I connected with the school or with anything there for that matter, which goes against everything people tell you about Hendrix being such an open and accepting place. Yes it's very open and accepting for your first semester of your freshman year; after that, you're on your own to try to break into people's extremely tight-knit friend groups that generally form during that first semester of freshman year. And if you are like me and did not necessarily fall into the best crowd during the aforementioned window of time, then you'll have an extremely hard time befriending people here. Perhaps if you are a very outgoing, extroverted person, you will have no problem, but if you are shy and introverted like me, the task is nearly impossible. I never had any actual "friends," at Hendrix, only acquaintances that I could sit with at lunch or go to some of the big parties on campus with in order to not look like a total outcast/loser. People are very nice and polite and generally good-natured, but very loyal to the small group of friends they made during the first semester of their first year.

Academically, I hardly felt challenged by the workload here. Perhaps this can be attributed to the fact that I went to an excellent high school that prepared me well for college, but the only reason I didn't graduate with perfect grades was because I was constantly battling depression and anxiety issues that stemmed from the social climate that I described above. My last semester there, when I wasn't having as many anxiety/depression issues, I easily made a 4.0.

Lastly, and this is very important if you're like me and semester study abroad is a #1 priority for you in college - the program/office here is not developed much at all (and small liberal arts schools can have robust and wonderful abroad programs all over the world - just look at Middlebury). There are not that many program options for you that are supported by the school if you want to study outside of Europe (as I did). The summer programs are good and of course there is the Odyssey program (but those are generally during the summer or during the Winter break), but as for semester or year study abroad outside of Europe, it's like Hendrix doesn't know how to deal with it, and the programs that they do offer are very low-quality (I went on one of them and had an awful time, as much as it pains me to say it). I have no idea if they're trying to improve this or not, but it's just something to keep in mind if you're serious about studying abroad for a semester or a year.