Today we went to Dartmouth College. Just within its name you can see the emphasis they put on their undergraduate programs. According to our tour guide a school has to be called a university if it had graduate programs, but Dartmouth fought to keep their name as Dartmouth College because they put such a great deal of their efforts into giving the undergraduates the resources they need to not only learn but also to explore their horizons.
Another thing that is unique to Dartmouth is that they allow their students to take summer terms so that the student can leave a semester during the winter instead of being forced to stay the fall and spring semesters. Instead they are allowed to take do it during the summer for sophomores and juniors. They do not allow freshman to do this because they want them to settle in and make Dartmouth their home. The seniors on the other hand want to spend their last school year with their friends on campus.
The students are active in all types of activities around campus and have a strong passion for whatever they are involved in. Our tour guide said that Dartmouth students are the kind of people who are passionate and excited about school but that they are also the active club member and help run an organization. They are the kind of students that are passionate and involved in everything. I can really appreciate these types of students because that is the type of student I believe I am and strive to be.
Over all I really liked the campus and the way that the school is there for you and not your money. I got the feeling that they are really there to make you the smartest and brightest student that you wanted to be. The small class sizes and professor to student ratio being 1:8 the school is really amazing and offers a unique learning environment.
Overall I really liked the school but I wish it were a little closer to home. If it were only two hours away from my house then I would feel more confident that I would be happy at the school. This is a really nice school that I would be honored to go to.
Megan,
ReplyDeleteWhen you're choosing a school and you're factoring in distance from home as matter of time instead of miles, then you have to ask yourself whether you're talking about driving or flying.
If you want someplace close enough to fly to in two hours or less then you can'y even consider a UCLA which is nearly six hours portal to portal by air.
Cal State East Bay, SF State and Stanford are about an hour away while Cal State Humboldt is considerably farther. You could probably make it to Sac State in less than two hours.
Cal is not that far and might be your best bet if distance is what you're looking for.
Some of the things that you wrote were 'unique' about Dartmouth really aren't unique. They're different than many other schools but they're certainly not unique.
It sounds, Megan, as if you might want to research Dartmouth a bit and see if there's something about it that might be a good fit for you. It may be just what you're looking for.
Then again, if distance is a determining factor there's Contra Costa College and Diablo Valley College as options at least for the short term.