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[cvillette]

Did you know the Midwest is full of colleges? Billions. (Okay, not billions. But I think they were founded the way we build prisons now.) And a lot of them are tiny. What's it like to go away to a small college? Wouldn't it feel as if everyone was staring at you?

Which leads me to this totally appropriate scary video.

Click to view

Comments

[capecorey]

<3 <3 <3

These are neat treats. Thankee.

[nebula99]

If I have nightmares about that tonight, I am totally blaming you . . .

[jennythe_reader]

Yeah, I think during the era when the Midwest territories were becoming states, founding colleges was part of the process. A lot of the big ones were started as Land Grant Colleges, and a lot of the small ones were started by churches to educate those poor ignorant rural folks. The rest of the small ones were started by philanthropists who wanted to give back.

I didn't go to a tiny college, but I think it would depend on how good a job you did picking your school. If you chose poorly it would be like the worst of high school, but if you chose well it would be like finding your tribe.

Great vid! Did you know that Alice Cooper is hosting a late night radio show these days? My local classic rock station used to play it. Pretty cool.

[cjtremlett]

Lots of those colleges were also founded by alumni of eastern colleges, often billing themselves as things like "the Harvard of the Midwest!"

I went to one. Beloit College, roughly 1,000 students. Loved it. Ultimately, I'd love to teach at a place like that. You get lots and lots of individualized attention. People don't slip through the cracks. I'm at grad school now, at a much bigger state school. A friend of mine recently was feeling very isolated since he rarely saw friends over the course of a week. Whereas at my undergrad, it was impossible not to.

Yes, there is a bit of the feeling of being in a fishbowl. But there are tons of advantages in terms of access to teachers and facilities, in terms of class size, and also in terms of the social setting.

[cjtremlett]

Yes!

I've found that people have either never heard of it, or have heard great things about it. One of those best kept secrets things!

[jenavira]

Me tooo. (Went to Beloit, that is, and loved it.) And although it sometimes feels like you know everyone and what they're doing all the time, in my junior year I went abroad with three other students from Beloit, and we'd never so much as seen each other walking across campus before. A thousand people is kind of as big or small as you make it, I think.

[phiremangston]

Heeeey. I go to a tiny Midwest college!

It's not so much that it feels like everyone is staring at you as that you know everybody. If not by name then by face. There are only 1600 students on my campus, which, by the way, only covers about two and a half square blocks. We call it the "Coe Bubble." Because even though we're in the middle of a (small) city, nobody ever leaves that Bubble.

I love being at a small school, though. I think at a large university I would feel like I was getting lost in the crowd.