Student Profile
Daniel
- Class: Sophomore
- Major: Psychology
- Gender: M
- High School: Santa Fe Waldorf High School
- Transfer Student: N
Big Picture
One of the best things about LC is the fact that the classes are quite small. You can actually interact with your teachers, which is very helpful. If I had to change one thing, it would definitely be the tuition. LC is expensive, and while I know a lot of the money goes to good things, some of it is pissed away on things like homecoming. Like the classes, the entire LC population is small. I personally find this to be great, but I came from a high school of 45. As someone from a large school, you might feel a little claustrophobic. When I tell people I go to LC they either say, "What? Is that a real school?", "Oh, I've heard thats a good school", or "Oh, so you're just some hippie then?" I spend most of my time in my dorm building, which is a good place to be if you make friends with the other people in it early on. There are also lots of places to spend time outside if it isn't raining. Portland is great if you're over 21, and LC is only about 20 minutes away. The admin is good overall, but like any group of old people lording over young people. they can be pretty clueless as to what you really want. Controversy usually stems from misunderstanding. I will always remember living with 3 other guys in a shoe box sized room. Complaints are usually about the food, which is actually pretty good.
Academic Life
Professors here know your name, unless they think they're better than everyone else. Then they feel that they don't have to. Whether they remember your name once you aren't in their classes is another story. Best class here is New Testament and Early Christian Literature. No Joke. Don't take ethics unless you really know what you're in for. People tend to study most right before finals, otherwise, I think they don't feel the pressure. Class participation varies depending on the size of the class and the subject. If its something like history, its mostly lecture, but if its psychology or any kind of lab science, participation is in some cases the biggest part of class. I continue to be surprised by the strange things we all talk about outside of class, we're always able to bring in something we learned that day and relate it to whatever we're talking about. Students here don't seem to be very competitive. Most unique class I've taken was probably Cross Cultural Psychology (That doesn't mean it was very good). As a psych major, I think the psych department is pretty diverse and that the professors are all very good at their specific fields and generally enjoy them as well. I don't spend much time with professors outside of class, though I do run into a professor from the philosophy department at the weirdest times...The academic requirements here are pretty standard: You need to know some math, you should speak another language, you have to do some chemistry or biology, etc. Also, we have a core class known as Exploration and Discovery, which is sort of English heavy and teaches you how to write. Different sections of this class are taught by professors in different departments, so the level of interestingness depends on that. LC is all about liberal arts, so it is geared towards learning a broad range of things that you can build on later. In other words, it is not as geared towards job life after college as some schools might be.
Student Body
You will be told that LC is very diverse, which is true to a certain extent. White people definitely dominate the scene, though there are a large number of Asian exchange students and some from other parts of the world as well. If you're lucky, and you have a lot of patience, you may even see an African American person! Most everyone here is pretty well off financially, don't let the raggedy hippies fool you, they are not poor and you shouldn't give them any money. A very preppy student might feel a little out of place here. Most people come to class in torn pants and a T-shirt. There is a fairly high level of interaction between the various student species on campus, but people also like to stick together. If there were 4 tables in the dining hall, they would be the athletes (fairly small table), the nerds (larger table), the neo-hippies (very large table), and the hipsters (equally large table). There are so many freakin' Californians here, its ridiculous. There are also a lot of people from the Northwest. As far as politics go, most people are pretty liberal, but if you look under some rocks, you'll find a republican.
