<p>Sven: </p>
<p>I’m actually an Albright Alum - I graduated in 2003. So my impressions may not be the most current, but I’m not THAT old either. (The summer I was at Kutztown was in 2002.)</p>
<p>I think very highly of my Albright experience. Now that I am taking courses elsewhere, I feel even more strongly about that. I think Albright really helped me grow, and as trite as this may sound, “find myself.” The academic environment is not very competitive, and that does not mean that the academics aren’t challenging, but rather that professors take a more nurturing/mentoring type approach, you’ll do a lot of group projects and generally professors really don’t grade on a curve- it’s not a sink-or-swim type culture. You will do A LOT of writing - I even had writing assignents in my calculus class on top of the problem sets. For the most part, I felt my professors genuinely enjoyed their jobs and being with students, and did a lot more than they were required to do for us.</p>
<p>Albright’s is strong on the liberal arts. There’s no nursing or engineering departments - so if you are looking for one of these more “practical” majors, it’s not the place. But if you are wanting a great college experience with a well-rounded academic path, then by all means take a look there. From my perspective the greatest strength, of the Albright’s majors, is the interdisciplinary nature of them - nearly everyone I knew was a combined, double or triple major. I had a combined Poli Sci/Sociology major. As far as best/worst I really don’t know that I can answer that in any more of a specific way than I just did. According to the numbers, the most popular major is apparently business, but I think most people combine business with a humanity, science, social science, language, art, etc… As far as having a liberal arts focus and having a career - I don’t know of any of my classmates who didn’t find work shortly after graduation. My boss is actually the father of one of my classmates.</p>
<p>As far as type of students, Albright largely attracts middle class students from Eastern, PA. Many students I knew received generous financial aid. When I was there, students were largely t-shirt and jeans types - brand names and expensive cars were by no means common on campus. Apparently Albright’s population is considered to be rather diverse in comparision to similar schools. I think most of the students there, were good students in high school, but not the super-achievers that we see here on CC. They are kids who take their academics seriously, but also know how to just be kids. </p>
<p>Something like 1/3 of students join a frat/sorority - I didn’t and I didn’t feel like I missed anything by not doing so. Sports Teams are Division 3. I knew there was sports teams on campus and that they were competitive within their conferences, but I didn’t know which of my classmates were athletes or not, unless I knew them outside of the classroom - which was really refreshing that those programs were pretty low-key(I went to a Catholic High School with very competitive athletic teams.) I did play some club sports while at Albright, those were fairly popular on campus and purely just for fun. Albright has the usual newspaper, literary journal, student government, radio station, hillel, theater, etc clubs that you’d expect. They host a lot of cultural events, (Speakers, Plays, Art Exhibits in the Gallery, etc.) on campus and Freshman/Sophomores are required to attend 16 of these over the course of those 2 years- which is very easy since there is 3-4 of these “events” each week and most are free for students. </p>
<p>I knew students who studied in Australia, Spain, London, Japan, Russia and elsewhere. There’s an office on campus for study abroad, but I don’t know too much about those opportunities, since I never looked into them. </p>
<p>Good luck in your decision!</p>