Carleton College

Date: Aug 28 2004
Major: Undecided (This Major's Salary over time)
Academically, this is a great school. I'm being challenged in my classes for the first time in my life, which is fantastic. I also am contemplating becoming a Geology major on the merits of an introductory-level Geology course I took, whose professor was so engaging and enthusiastic (taking this man outside is like letting loose a kid in a candy store) that I think he might have converted about half the class from their planned majors.

On the topic of classes, procrastination will eat you alive if you let it. Around the end of term, all of your classes have all of their major projects due, plus studying for finals. And this happens three times a year due to the trimester schedule Carleton operates on. This can be a tough place for people who struggle with mental health problems, partially because of this periodic and very intense stress, and partially because everyone else is just as stressed out so the Wellness Center is quite overworked. This is especially apparent winter term, when lots of people get a little cabin fever during that wonderful time of the year when 0 degrees feels warm.

Academic advising varies widely depending on who your adviser is. Most genuinely want to be helpful, but especially the first two years before you declare your major (your first advisor is assigned based on one of your first term freshman classes), they often are too uninformed about departments outside their own to really be particularly helpful for long-term course planning.
The social life at Carleton is really what you make of it. If you're the type who expects a crazy party scene when you go to college, you will probably be disappointed by the offerings at Carleton. These people tend to end up completely trashed every Friday and Saturday night, then wander around looking for something to do and generally won't find anything. I lived in substance-free housing my freshman year, though, and since I am not particularly interested in drinking, I never had problems finding things to do. There are free movies every Friday and Saturday night, plus tons of concerts and theater productions. There are generally a few parties going on at various places around campus as an option, plus the wacky people you meet here are generally quite good at finding some random and hilarious things to do (like the ever-popular traying, stealing dining hall trays to go sledding when there's some decent snow).

The dining halls are…less than impressive. People are generally enthusiastic about it for the first two weeks freshman year. Then they start seeing Monday's hamburger show up in Friday's lasagna, or soup, or pizza. The only other campus food is the snack bar, which is badly overpriced and uses basically the same food as the dining hall. A small meal plan and some basic cooking knowledge is a good way to go.

Extracurriculars are something that nearly everyone is involved with. There are the standards for varsity sports, plus more strange sports like broomball, Ebony (our no-talent-required dance group) and ultimate frisbee (which has quite possibly attained cult status…it's one of the few sports Carls get really excited about). Plus, there are enough non-athletic clubs and groups to keep most anyone entertained, and if the club doesn't exist yet, people don't hesitate to form their own.
Carleton is a great school for the right sort of person. If you are motivated and eager to learn but don't always need your hand held and are relatively good at entertaining yourself, Carleton could just be the right school for you.