Messiah College

Date: May 08 2016
Major: Design Arts - Industrial Design/Graphic Design/etc (This Major's Salary over time)
This school has its pros and cons, I'll do the best of my ability to list both equally. However, after some deliberation I have chosen to transfer out of Messiah, so my opinion of the school isn't exactly a positive one.

Pros: ? Campus safety is absolutely incredible. I've never felt in danger, and I've never felt the need to call dispatch to drive me back to my dorm late at night. ? Students are trustworthy. You can use your laptop, phone, ID, etc to mark your lunch table. ? Campus is absolutely beautiful, and the campus is small so no matter where you are on campus, it should take you no longer than 5-10 minutes to walk to your classroom. ? Most of the profs I've had were really cool and class sizes were really small. ? Welcome week is a great way to meet new people before classes really start. ? The food is excellent compared to most other colleges, though I do wish they had more options besides chicken every day and mac n cheese every Friday. ? While you are required to go to chapels every semester, you're only required to go to 14. You have three options a week, so you can get them done in five weeks. ? The professors are all religious, but not obnoxiously so. There might be praying at the beginning of class, but half the profs don't even do that. ? It is very easy to get involved in stuff and meet friends through groups and other people. ? Service day (required for freshmen) was an absolutely incredible experience. If I were staying on campus, I would love to do service day again.

Cons:

??You waste almost an entire semesters worth of classes (12 credits) taking FYS and CCC (both are required for freshmen), religion, and bible. These classes talk about the bible but unless you're studying religion, theology or bible, those classes have no relevance to your major. FYS and CCC have no relevance to your major no matter what you are studying.

? Most of the chapels are generally pretty boring. Many Messiah students do homework during them. If you do not go to enough chapels, you are fined $15 per missed chapel and put on "chapel probation". If you are on chapel probation for three semesters, Messiah can kick you out (they said that in an email). ? If you have extra printer money, dining dollars, etc. at the end of the semester, it's not refunded. ? Either the students are super nice or super snooty - there's no real in-between. There are definitely "cliques" at this college, and almost a middle-school like separation between the genders here. ? Speaking of students, so many of the first year students transfer out after one or two semesters. I know of at least 25 that are transferring out. ? LGBT+ students are treated like they don't exist by college staff. There is a support group, but Messiah staff keeps washing away or taking down the advertisements people put up for it.

??I hope you can have a car or know somebody with a car, because being on such a small campus in the middle of nowhere without a car is enough to drive you absolutely insane. There's nowhere off campus you can even walk to.

? If you have any sexual history at all, prepare to be judged by the nurses at the Engle center for it. They even have abstinence posters on their walls with false statistics on them (

If you sleep with 12 people, technically you've slept with 1048!

).

? Some of the classes I've taken spent about five minutes a day praying to God, which wouldn't be bad if it weren't a 50 minute class. Some profs also try to relate God to the coursework where it isn't needed which is also a colossal waste of time.

? There is tutoring, but only for some handpicked classes. None of my classes except for Oral Communication had tutors that knew about the subject.

Advice if you go here:

I personally would advise you to not go here. To me, this place feels like a waste of time and money, when you could get an equally great, but not as personalized, education at a state school. ? Be as assertive and friendly as you can during welcome week and the first week of classes. Introduce yourself to EVERYONE and have a smile on your face. This'll make things so much easier in the long run. ? Get involved with stuff! It's never too late to join a club or study group. ? Get an Eno hammock or something like that. Students hang those everywhere in the warm weather. Having a deck of cards handy is also a great idea. ? I would not recommend you go here if you're going into computer science. Do go here if you're going into music.