Student Profile
Alyssa
- Class: Freshman
- Major:
- Gender: F
- High School: The Madeira School
- Transfer Student: N
Big Picture
I think one of the best things about the campus is that people are not afraid, and are in fact encouraged, to state their opinions. With the recent drama surrounding President Nichol and the Sex Workers' Art Show, you can see it more than ever. Beyond that, there's always opinion columns in The Flat Hat written by students and professors. When I tell people I go to William and Mary they usually say "good job" or they look excited and tell me they know someone, cousin, friend, whoever, who went there who I should talk to. Honestly, with my schedule this semester, I spend a lot of time in class. And when it's cold, its rare to see people outside in huge numbers. I usually hang out at the rec center, in my dorm, or sometimes in Swem. But when the weather's nice I like to hang out on Sunken Gardens or in this one tree behind Wren. Before the tourists come its also nice to cruise around Colonial Williamsburg. In terms of having a college town William and Mary is somewhat lacking. We do have New Town and the outlets and CW before the tourists come, but nothing that exciting. There are some good restaurants though. I always hear good things about Nawab and Mongo's is really good for all you can eat Asian food.
Academic Life
One of the things I like about William and Mary academics is that, at least in my experience, they're not geared toward find a career. It's really more learning for the sake of becoming a well-rounded human being. That's not to say thought that we don't have certain majors like bio or chem or education that are tailored to be pre-professional, but you're not going to see a philosophy major being pushed into anything. Class participation is pretty common, but it varies from class to class and person to person. In big lectures though, I've noticed that people get annoyed when the lecture is interrupted in any way. People can be kind of intense. Not really competitive, but intense. There are some grade grubbers, but most people just compete with themselves. I thought the GERs were really helpful because I had no idea what I wanted to do before I got here, and now I'm doing a double major in psych and film. I don't know much about those two departments yet because I'm a freshman so I haven't declared my major yet. I'm sure there will be some professors I hang out with outside of class though.
Student Body
This school is pretty liberal but there are still a lot of conservative people because we're in the south. Overall though, we definitely tend to swing to the left, and people are not afraid to speak up about their political beliefs. We've got clubs for basically every presidential candidate. It's kind of annoying getting leaflets in my CSU from them all the time, actually. There's a pretty diverse range of people, but not like you'd find at other places. I mean, the administration says they're working on it, but I guess its kind of hard when two thirds of the students are from Virginia, and 80% of those are from NoVA. Different types of students interact, but once people find their groups, they tend to stick with them. It's not like you can't hang out with other groups though. I'm not Greek and I hang out with my Greek friends all the time.
The Best Things
People. Even the colonial reenactors are good sports.
The Worst Things
Parking. Good Lord. Would it hurt to have some more parking?
