Colorado State University | Student Reviews | Best College

Student Profile

Amanda

Class: Junior
Major: Chemistry
Gender: F

High School: Denver School of the Arts
Transfer Student: N

Big Picture

The first thing I remember thinking about CSU is how big the campus is. It was the biggest campus I looked at when I was applying to colleges. I think that's part of what makes it beautiful. It has the same things other campuses have, but our residence halls are broken up by our football practice field and intermural fields. I remember wondering if I'd get lost. Once you get to the academic part of campus, though, it's not as large as the residence hall part of campus but it's still got "the oval", a large oval-shaped field with huge trees and buildings all around it. The important thing to remember is the campus is huge but there are many different pockets into which you will fit. It seems daunting but I found some of my best friends living in the dorms and I found some of my best study groups in the academic portion of campus. And anywhere you look on campus you'll see something natural and beautiful.

Academic Life

I'm a chemistry major here at CSU so my experience has been a little different. From day one, I was placed in a chemistry class for chemistry majors. As you probably imagined, there were not many of us. General chemistry and organic chemistry were the only classes we had our own sections for, but in physics we'd still sit together and study for exams together in the chemistry majors' lounge. This was really helpful because I've never felt like I'm doing this alone. While every major doesn't have something quite like this, I would encourage everyone to meet the students in their major if they're given the opportunity and make this happen for you. Having a solid group to fall back on when you're not understanding something is the biggest help in college. As far as academic rigor is concerned, it really depends on the class. There are some classes that you will barely need to study for and, especially as you get older, there will be classes that seem to take up all of your time. What is important is to meet with your advisor when you're sorting out your schedule so they can guide in spreading out your more time consuming requirements. I didn't take all of my elective classes freshman and sophomore year so that I'd have something easy to take when my chemistry classes were getting hard. That's been important

Student Body

CSU's student body is diverse. We have students, graduate students and professors from all around the world. We have many student groups for students with different races, religious backgrounds, sexual orientations, interests, etc. We also have Greek life (sororities and fraternities) which is open to anyone who wants to join. A lot of our students come from Colorado but many are from elsewhere.