With
regard to the student body, yeah, its pretty homogeneous, but
I think Trinity was making a big effort to recruit
more international students than when I entered in 2005. I
liked most of my professors, as they were very willing
to help, provide advice, etc.
I also found that double
majoring/minoring plus a year of study abroad was very doable
with the fantastic help of the international office. If study
abroad/international stuff is your thing, this is a great school
that encourages you to go wherever you want. They are
great for (upper level) Spanish, but unfortunately don't have the
resources for real linguistics/less common languages (i.e. non-Romance language) courses.
I would say the educational quality and perception outside the
university seems to be centered around: bio/chem/premed, engineering, economics, Int'l
Studies (e.g.Lat Am studies), and Accounting-particularly the 5 year MS
program. I also did a lot of poly sci coursework,
and while the upper division courses were enjoyable, I found
a couple of the intro classes to be absolutely asinine.
There wasn't much of an concerted effort to publicize or
help finding relevant internships in my majors- though I did
go and find one myself despite them. I did have
the opportunity to help with research with a professor. If
you can form close relationships with 1-2 profs, as is
more likely if you go to a smaller school, they
will be an invaluable resource for grad school as well
as undergrad possibilities.
Unique to the school: Emphasis on study
abroad, Economists in the Schools program (where you teach kids
econ over a semester), Pretty good D3 football team, Student
Managed Fund, and an ass-kicking engineering program.
All in all,
I formed great friendships at Trinity, and I absolutely do
not agree that there was nothing to do/everyone only studies/everyone's
immature. Some people seem to be confused- people study to
much but are way too immature? I usually don't associate
those qualities with each other. Anyways, there were parties all
the time, but the overall IQ and awareness of current
events of most of the population is well above the
population at large. Sure, there are a lot of peroxide
blonde sorority sisters getting their MRS degree, but as only
some 25% of the study body is involved in a
frat/sorority, the whole school doesn't really revolve around them like
your SMU-esque college does.
My only reservation about going
to Trinity is how expensive it's become and how much
loan debt I'm in despite partial scholarship/parental help- I'm not
sure its growing regional reputation would warrant the price of
it now- even if they have increased scholarship money somewhat.