The College of New Jersey

Date: Feb 05 2015
Major: Math (This Major's Salary over time)
My experience with TCNJ was as follows:

Pros:

Academics come first and foremost in this college. I've heard that some majors are better than others, but I graduated being very satisfied with the education I got, and most of my friends feel the same way.

Professors here care about your state of well being and are not absorbed in their research all day. They'll do anything they can to make sure you learn something valuable. I'm still in touch with some professors today!

If you ignore the construction going on, TCNJ's campus is beautiful. You'll see that when it's really nice outside, people'll sit near the trees, on benches, or basically anywhere they can outside to work. It certainly beats staying in a dorm room all day.

Buildings, whether dorm rooms or academic facilities, are cleaned very thoroughly.

People here, for the most part, are VERY liberal.

The few people I made friends with here are FANTASTIC. We're basically friends for life at this point.

Cons:

TCNJ's biggest problem, in my opinion, is its lack of diversity, despite it claiming it to be one of the more diverse schools in New Jersey. Almost every person that I've met here (with the exception of a few) stays inside their social circle, and does not venture outside of it to meet different people. Athletes will stick together, fraternity brothers will stick together, computer geeks will stick together…basically, every high school clique you can think of exists here. Because I met people from all different groups, it was hard to fit in with just one of them. Diversity is not just about having students from varying backgrounds-it's also about having students interact with each other despite of this. TCNJ's students fail to do this.

Considering the last con I wrote, I'm very surprised I was able to find good friends. That being said, I should mention that I'm an introvert unless I'm around friends. Because of this, most people saw me as too quiet, so they wanted nothing to do with me. Therefore, unless you're naturally social and outgoing, expect it to be difficult to find people to relate to here.

Backstabbing. Some people will act really nice to you one day, but, if jealousy or fear exists for whatever reason, they will not be afraid to talk about you behind your back. Some even go as far as to pin other friends against each other (which was what happened to me, unfortunately). Especially for the social butterflies out there, be very careful who you trust completely at this college.

Extracurricular activities are weak in the sense that they encourage the social "cliques" I mentioned earlier. Unless you fit in with a said clique, you might not get much out of any club, organization, fraternity, or sorority. Therefore, they can be somewhat exclusive in this sense.

There's not much to do outside of campus, considering Trenton is nearby, and Princeton is only accessible via driving. Considering freshmen can't have cars on-campus, the best option for them is to take a bus, which runs very slowly anyways.

Overall, TCNJ should be highly considered if academics are your main priority. In the social sense, however, the lack of diversity will prove to treat some students as outcasts (as was myself). It was definitely an informative college experience for me, but it was not one I'd repeat again.