Student Profile
Samantha
- Class: Senior
- Major: International Relations
- Gender: F
- High School: AFNorth International
- Transfer Student: N
Big Picture
The best thing about IUP would be the various extracurricular activities available to students, in which personally has made my college experience so much more worth wild. One thing that I would change is the diversity issue. I feel that in the three years that I have already spent as an IUP student there is still polarization between the international students and the American students. For me, coming from an international background it bugs me to see this. I wish there was more activities that would incorporate both the international community and the U.S. community. School size, I feel is just right for me. Reactions about IUP are all pretty positive. I usually do not spend most of my time in just one spot on campus. Reasons being, I'm involved in numerous extracurricular activities & have a double major. Yes, IUP is located in a college town known as Indiana which is in PA. IUP's administration is a funny subject. Let me say, as a spanish major, I am very disappointed with the lack of funding to the language depts. In addition, I am very disappointed with the spanish program in general. Also, I've noticed lately our administration has been putting lots of money into building new dorms to expand the size of our campus, but the building where both the history and political science depts are located has been long overdue for some major remodeling or rebuilding and that has not occured yet. There's other issues as well but I much rather not go into. Biggest controversy on campus was with the main graduation ceremony.However, I am not sure of all the details. One thing for sure, there is a lot of school pride amongst everyone. Nothing unusual about IUP that I know of. The experience I will always remember was studying abroad in Mexico for my spanish major. That was one of the best!! IUP made that avaiable for me. The most frequent student complaints are the cafeteria food, prices of the food at the hub, and the long lines for food.
Academic Life
Most of my professor know my name depending upon the size of the class. My favorite classes at IUP are usually the ones where the professors are very enthusiastic about the subject they are teaching and allow for in class discussions. I usually consume the most from those types of classes. My least favorite classes usually have the mandatory attendance policies and have professors that don't care about what they are teaching, just assign busy work during the class, or they have no idea what they are talking about. Study wise, I would say when I was a freshmen I hardly needed to study. However, as a sophomore and junior I found myself studying about 2-5 hours depending upon the subject. There is definitely students outside of class having intellectual conversations. I, myself is one them. I always love to meet up with friends for coffee at starbucks or the commonplace for intellectual conversations. Also, students at IUP are very competitive academically. Especially when you get into the upper level classes, you see a lot of competition. The most unique classes I have taken was a history of the renaissance and the reformation, a comparative politics class on western countries, and American Foreign policy. I'm a double major, Spanish and International Relations. I use to have a french minor but it conflicted with my spanish major. I love my international relations major, the professors, and the classes. However, I have grown to hate my spanish major, because of the majority of the professors that teach in that dept. I am only sticking with the program to become fluent in the language. Other than that, I don't care for the program anymore. Some of my professors, I do meet up with during office hours just to have intellectual conversations with. I do not mind IUP's over academic requirments but I do hate the spanish dept's. requirements. That is because it is all based on Spain and their Spain study abroad program that is only offered in the Spring. I think the education at IUP is geared towards getting job, learning, and taking knowledge from the classroom and being able to apply it to your own life which I find very beneficial.
Student Body
To be honest there is a lot of diversity at IUP, but everyone sticks to their own little clique. For instance a group of sorority sisters from the same sorority will all hang out together, the basketball players will all hang out together, the international kids all hang out together, etc. Students at IUP are usually from Eastern or Western PA, Maryland, New York, the D.C. area, West Virginia, or outside the U.S. Financial backgrounds that are prevalent are blue collar or upper middle class. Also, those from the inner cities like Philadelphia or Pittsburgh come from poorer backgrounds. Students are definitely politically aware especially with elections going on. My school is predominantly left, because of location.
The Best Things
wide range of organizations and activities avaiable
The Worst Things
Spanish dept.
