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<p>We can turn this thread into a Myers-Briggs introvert vs extrovert thread real quick!<br>
Never had dinner with any professors, never interested. I had my own social life :-)</p>
<p>In working back to “perceptions”, I remember Karl Marx said something about the “idiocy of rural life”.</p>
<p>Take Middlebury, Vermont. Cow-tipping, anyone? When you tire of that, well, it’s middle-buried between … Burlington and Rutland?</p>
<p>In the entire “CC Top Liberal Arts Colleges” list, there is exactly one coeducational college with a first tier urban location. That would be Macalester College in St. Paul, MN. Today is June 15. Has the river thawed yet? </p>
<p>After that, you’d be resorting to Hartford (Trinity College). Blecch!
Is it any wonder that Barnard College has the highest yield of all these schools?</p>
<p>Not everyone thinks that four years spent pounding the pavements of NY is the quintessential college experience, TK.</p>
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Well, there are a LOT of very interactive small discussion courses going on there, too, but they don’t generally post those, because that would be weird for the students involved, yes?</p>
<p>Professors thinking they’re funny when they’re not simply cannot be helped. And I don’t think it’s a flaw limited to research universities, either.</p>
<p>I had dinner with professors, both in their homes, and when we inivited them to have dinner with us and many who knew me by name at my large university. Even one who taught a lecture course knew my name because he discussed paper topics with every student before they wrote them and handed them back in person. I ended up writing my undergrad thesis with him. It’s a little tiresome to see “this only happens at LACs” when it’s not true. It may be more part of the culture at LACs, but good professors who care about their students are everywhere.</p>
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<p>Did someone say “Meta-thread”?</p>
<p>(and this particular thread is a perfect illustration of why I started *that *one.)</p>
<p>Yeah, until the technology is improved, is there much point to posting discussion classes as opposed to straight lecture classes on the web? </p>
<p>S also has had dinner in his prof’s home (and wrote his thesis under the prof’s guidance). Also those House Masters are also profs and they hold dinners for the students in their Houses all the time. Plus there are the faculty dinners twice a year at which a student or group of students invite one prof for dinner at their cafeteria. One prof used to invite her undergraduate Course Assistants to Burdick’s every week to discuss the course and the p-sets.</p>
<p>Oh, the Meta-thread…wonder how the Octo-babies are doing.</p>
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<p>You’re right. It’s very difficult for one to find inspiration in the midst of mountain lakes, roaring streams, and fields of green. </p>
<p>“Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile,
Hath not old custom made this life more sweet
Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods
More free from peril than the envious court?
Here feel we but the penalty of Adam,
The seasons’ difference; as, the icy fang
And churlish chiding of the winter’s wind,
Which, when it bites and blows upon my body,
Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say
This is no flattery: these are counsellors
That feelingly persuade me what I am.
Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;
And this our life exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in every thing.
I would not change it.” </p>
<p>-W. Shakespeare</p>
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<p>You’re right. In fact, there would be little to no value for my midwestern-born-and-bred, upper-middle-class suburban sprawl children to ever be exposed to any type of environment aside from what they already know.</p>
<p>So, I’m looking for a college that consists of entirely of two-story brick colonials with the occasional Tudor thrown in, that’s located on a cul-de-sac in a gated neighborhood, with Panera Bread, Starbucks, Home Depot and Target within easy driving distance. Attached garages only, please. Any suggestions?</p>
<p>BTW, Bryn Mawr, Haverford and Swarthmore are all right on the outskirts of a major city. Wellesley’s outside Boston. Etc, etc, and so forth.</p>
<p>Look – if you don’t like rural, that’s cool, but for many people that’s a feature, not a bug.</p>
<p>Pomona is outside LA (although I have to say it seems farther out than it is).</p>
<p>Reed, Occidental, Emerson, Rhodes, and Trinity (San Antonio) ought to count as urban, too. It’s not completely a null set.</p>
<p>Plus, one should recognize that many people believe that the best environment for education is one where students are not distracted by the blandishments of a major city, and where they are encouraged to look to their own campus for stimulation and entertainment. I don’t believe that, entirely, and my kids didn’t at all, but it’s not crazy.</p>
<p>In addition to which, it’s not like all of the major research universities are in such vibrant urban settings. Ithaca, Binghamton, Stony Brook, Purchase, Amherst, NY, State College PA, Gainesville FL, Oxford MS, Palo Alto CA, Ann Arbor MI, Charlottesville VA, Durham and Chapel Hill NC . . . some are nice college towns, some not, but apart from the universities themselves they don’t offer much of what a real city does.</p>
<p>And Reed is in Portland.</p>
<p>I don’t know that LACs have locations less “top tier” than plently of Universities. I’d consider Pasadena, Palo Alto, Ann Arbor and Chapel Hill to be on a par with Waltham, Bryn Mawr, Northfield or Poughkeepsie.</p>
<p>Or what JHS said.</p>
<p>"… apart from the universities themselves they don’t offer much of what a real city does. "</p>
<p>In a campus-based (non-commuter) situation where most offerings must be provided from the school itself, IMO one might expect that a community with 30,000 students & according supporting staff might potentially offer more than an otherwise-comparable community consisting of only 2,000 students.</p>
<p>30,000 people is a small city, 2,000 people is a big high school.</p>
<p>But this undoubtedly varies by school.</p>
<p>I agree that this is more a feature than a problem, and either type institution may have either feature.</p>
<p>We don’t like big-city schools much here, the ones we’ve attended the city detracted from the experience of being a college student too much. But that’s another thread…</p>
<p>I love the generalizations that are rampant on this thread!</p>
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<p>The University of Phoenix online?
(assuming that description applies to one’s own neighborhood, of course)</p>
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You’d almost think The Bard had been to Northfield, Minnesota.</p>
<p>But as a matter of fact, I like rural. I really do.
The urban/rural thing reminds me of a line in the “Wear Sunscreen” commencement address:
Though I’m at a loss to say how the analogy works. Is rural hard and city soft? Or is it the other way around?</p>
<p>Re post #489 “Even till I shrink with cold” - sounds like a Seinfeld episode.</p>
<p>Wouldn’t it make sense now to argue over what a “real city” is? I’ll start. Pittsburgh.</p>
<p>I’ll give you a couple more:</p>
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<p>Not that today’s top-notch LACs come close to Spartan living, but there is something to be said for learning in an environment that’s far from the distractions of city (and suburban) life.</p>