Colorado College | Student Reviews | Best College

Student Profile

Anne

Class: Senior
Major: Creative Writing
Gender: F

High School: Cate Boarding School in Santa Barbara
Transfer Student: Y

Big Picture

I love this school with all my heart. I transferred here sophomore year from Duke, fleeing the university's large classes and research-minded professors and bad location. At CC, I've found people who are passionate about everything, who love to discuss classes outside of the classroom, who are driven and intelligent but so down to earth. The size has never been a problem for me because you feel safe when you go out and see a party full of people you know. Every party at CC is a theme party. A party without costumes and 80's music is no party at all here. Although Colorado Springs is a pretty sketchy location, (meth labs, military presence, the extreme religious right of Focus on the Family and the New Life Church), our school is a haven of sanity and safety. Our relationship with the community is an interesting one. Yes, there is a "CC Bubble," where few people venture off campus and we believe that everything in the world is as good as it is at our school. Those who are 21 rarely go to bars because campus weekends are so much fun. The school organizes so many events for us like Llampalooza, the big concert festival, bagels and brewfest for seniors, hundreds of speakers, comedians, winterball and homecoming, etc. The professors here really care about their students and many of them become our friends. It is rare to find a professor who won't have you over to his or her house for coffee and conversation. Few go by anything other than their first name and laugh when you call them "Professor __." They are always eager to help and know everything about you, from your hometown to your particular style of writing to what you are doing for block break. Many help you find jobs. Classes are rarely lecture based and you spend as much time learning from your fellow students as you do from your professors. CC is unique in that it doesn't require it's professors to "publish or perish," so unlike Duke, where professors are researchers first and teachers second, CC profs live for their students. Of course of the most unique things about our school is the block system. It allows you to get completely immersed in a subject to the point of an obsession for some classes. It also allows you to get all your credits taken care of pretty easily. You actually retain the information you learn because you think of nothing else for three and a half weeks. You never have homework on breaks because each block ends in a break, so you take your final for that class and that's it. The block plan also enables students to take blocks abroad or time off for skiing. I went to Ireland for a whole month to research and write poetry. Yes, it is a stressful system if you are taking science classes or if you are a procrastinator. You simply have to do your work when it's assigned or you are screwed. Missing class is not an option because one day is like a week on the semester plan. However, if you're sick, you only have to make it until noon and then you can go sleep for the rest of the day. Everyone here is involved in something. There's always some student activity going on and most students juggle multiple commitments with ease. It doesn't matter what your parents do, it matters what you do. These aren't the kids with 800 SAT scores and a house in the Hamptons. They are the kids who spent a year doing a Knolls trip, volunteered in Africa, researched Chilean weaving practices, wrote poetry books, worked with some White House senator, and somehow managed to get great grades at the same time. Block breaks are times when students volunteer or go backpacking. When the temperature gets above 50, every grassy space is filled with people playing frisbee, slacklining, reading, or just hanging out.

Academic Life

As I mentioned before, professors don't just know your name, they know your life story and ask you to babysit their kids. I have loved the majority of my classes from Business Law to Myth and Meaning where we traced the similarities in Jungian psychology and the development of the conscious self to the development of cultural myths, particularly Greek ones. I also went to London to study theater with a class for 8th block last year, seeing some 20 or so plays in three weeks with a former British theater director as our professor and traveling all over the country. However, my favorite class by far was my Beginning Poetry Writing class. In two blocks, we developed as poets, went to the Bacca campus to write, and became best friends with each other and our professor, published poet Jane Hilberry. Since then, our class has had three other classes together, published books, and given readings. We go over to Jane's house to have coffee and dessert, write, and just hang out. If you don't talk in class, you are penalized not only by the professor, but by your fellow students. Class discussion is always lively and for the most part, intelligent. Everyone talks about classes outside of the classroom and students often develop "block friends" or "block relationships" because the friendships you form during class are made incredibly close through your connection with the material. When that class is over, you still smile at the person you were friends with when you pass them in the Worner center, but you pretty much go back to your group of friends. Students are not competitive, but they are high achievers. No one's going to announce they got an A on a paper in class and then ask you what you got, but you can always study with another student and there's a lot of peer tutoring that occurs. The creative writing track is a division of the English major and is branched into Poetry and Fiction. We must fulfill all of the requirement of an English major and then take four other blocks of creative writing, be accepted into the program through an application process, and take a senior seminar and a thesis block to produce a collection of poems. Our department largely spends its money on brining visiting writers to come speak, like Billy Collins. Other majors, like the econ department, hold events for their majors like Port and Politics or Happy Hour at Phantom Canyon. The career center at CC leaves something to be desired and the school is much more focused on producing well rounded liberal arts students than i-bankers. While Duke brings companies in that recruit and place with jobs in October, it is rare to find a CC senior who knows what he or she is doing after graduation even in May.