Washington University in St. Louis | Student Reviews | Best College

Student Profile

Ellie

Class: Sophomore
Major: Anthropology
Gender: F

High School: Forsyth Country Day School
Transfer Student: N

Big Picture

The best thing about WashU is that everyone is so willing to help you in your endeavors. My four year advisor will help me with any problem I am having, even if it does not pertain to school. ResLife was helpful for me too- I had to move dorms mid-year and they helped me and allowed me to choose exactly where I needed to move. When I tell people I go to WashU they usually have no clue what I'm talking about. There is not much school pride, but I'm okay with that. It fits me that it's not a major sports school. The fact that we don't have much school pride just shows how mellow we are. I would say we have pride in the fact that we go to WashU. I rarely hear major complaints about the school; everyone seems pretty happy with going to WashU, and I'd call that having school pride of sorts. I think WashU's administration is fabulous. They are so friendly and seem concerned about the students, more so than when I talk to my friends from other schools. For example, I would feel that I could drop a class if I said I was having psychological issues, yet one of my friends at a state school wasn't allowed to drop a class when she needed to use that reason.

Academic Life

Professors don't know my name. There are some who do, but most of those aren't even professors, they're grad students or lecturers. I like the requirements at WashU because there is a lot of leeway in fulfilling requirements. The only issue I have with requirements is Writing I. When I took it, I felt like I was back in high school and I HATED high school. I also don't think that I learned anything from the set curriculum of the class. I got an A in the class, but I don't think I really took anything away from the class other than the "A" on the transcript. I think so far one of my favorite classes is Primate Biology with Prof. Rasmussen. I am having an amazing time learning about primates in the class. Prof Rasmussen often will share personal stories of his and primates, and he shows lots of videos taken of primates in the wild. One of the class assignments is to actually go to the zoo and study the primates there, which is tons of fun because you can see first hand the things that you are learning about.

Student Body

I think that a lot of students at WashU are overly concerned about their futures, and they are only taking courses that they think will help them succeed in the future. This bothers me because it is a liberal arts school for the purpose of exposing students to lots of different subjects. The purpose of the school is not necessarily to prepare you to be on the track for a specific lucrative job.