Bucknell University

Date: Oct 22 2006
Major: English (This Major's Salary over time)
Everything at Bucknell comes with its unhealthy share of positives and negatives. It is a place of extremes where you'll find yourself saying you love it one minute then loathe it the next. I guess it'll be more appropriate to explain what I mean.

The campus and most of the dorms are beautiful. The maintenance staff does a great job making sure Bucknell’s external aesthetic value matches that of the surrounding countryside. The downside of that, however, is that it is located in the absolute middle of nowhere. This is a point of contention in many arenas. Many will argue that it aids the social atmosphere in that everyone is tied to the Bucknell community someway or another, whereas, at a larger university, many students would be tempted to leave campus frequently. This dramatically affects the menu of options one has for activities on the weekends. Which brings me to my next point…

The social life has its share of extremes as well. Social life at Bucknell revolves around fraternity life. As a first-year male student, you will often feel excluded and unwelcome. As a first-year female student, life may be good. Unfortunately, the word “moderation” does not exist on this campus. Students drink until they are physically unable to drink more. Then the next morning, they get up and drink more. Every weekend is the same. With the fraternity scene as the center for social life, the school is unable to plan alternative activities because so few people would actually participate. Leaving campus only further diminishes hope of finding something to do.

Though the social life has its flaws, I would be remiss to not mention that the opposite is true of the actual student body. There are many brilliant individuals. Though little social, ethnic, or economic diversity exists at Bucknell, the students are accepting of all backgrounds. Some may criticize Bucknell as the

mecca for the popped-collared brats of white-collared America,

but I have found that this stereotype is only a veneer. As for the negatives, the student population is largely conservative. Liberal-thinking individuals will feel constantly outnumbered and overwhelmed.

The professors are very accessible and certainly well-qualified. A small amount of the faculty, however, understand little (or rather care little to understand) the importance of grades in the modern world that we live in. 99% of the professors are quite fair in their evaluation, but, in my experience so far, some assess “fair” on a very different scale. The workload is quite reasonable. The work is such that a student will little or no self-motivation or willpower will easily find themselves in trouble. Most of my work consists of reading (and lots of it).
Overall, it is the best of times and it is the worst of times here at Bucknell. If you attend a campus tour, try to keep an open mind and note that everyone here is told to say they love it through the mass amount of propaganda.