<p>experience? I mean something more real than stereotypes... I'm an international student and was surprised when I found that American colleges and universities are something different from what I thought they would be... I don't even know where I got that image from ??!! I'll tell you about the image after I hear from you guys ;)</p>
<p>Huh? What are you looking for?</p>
<p>huh? you think most people stay home and go to community college?</p>
<p>I'm not sure it's just hard to generalize the typical US college experience...it's nearer impossible if you want something deeper than stereotypes.</p>
<p>I imagine that the "typical" experience is actually what CC-ers would consider fairly atypical: community college, commuter campuses, trade-oriented degrees, maybe satellite state campuses, commuting from home or off-campus, working part-time, taking more than 4 years to graduate. I don't know, but this is my guess. I wonder what the numbers say...</p>
<p>Looks like more students are full-time than part-time (not a drastic difference), and the most popular majors are Business, Social Sciences & History, and Education (<a href="http://nces.ed.gov)%5B/url%5D">http://nces.ed.gov)</a>. In a very quick search, I didn't find info on how many students go to 2-year vs. 4-year or public vs. private. But the school with the highest enrollment in the country is the University of Phoenix (online).</p>
<p>I don't know what really is "typical." I went to a LAC that seemed about as collegiate as you could get (for a D3 school!)--discussion-based classes, accessible professors, Ivy covered buildings, tradition, everyone living in on-campus dorms--and I know that my experience was largely incomparable to that which I would've had at a major university, or even at a LAC on the other side of the country, let alone a distance learning program or a commuter campus. When I think about what must be typical, my own experience seems obvious. But even if I just stop to think about my friends' experiences at different schools, generalizing becomes pretty tough.</p>
<p>I think there's just too much variance for your original post to be well-answered. Are you looking for our beliefs about the actual typical experience (that is, higher education as it's experienced by the largest percentage of students), the typical experience among students of 4-year schools, the typical experience among the type of students who frequent these boards...?</p>
<p>I can't wait to get the image that you got, Truthseeker. But apparently, you're a truthseeker. May I ask which college you're currently at?</p>