<p>I'm admitted under ED2 and I'm glad to know current students here in this forum.</p>
<p>I know that many of you love Smith soooo much that you talk mostly about what is great about Smith. I love Smith a lot, too. But I just wanna know if any of you have any little complaint about Smith.</p>
<p>So, what do you dislike about Smith?</p>
<p>Maybe the answers to this question can give me a more 3-dimensional image of Smith.</p>
<p>BTW, I'm glad to contact you by email. If you wanna make friends with me, send me private messages and I'll tell you my email address and more about myself.</p>
<p>One parent's perspective: Smith often suffers from an overdose of political correctness. It's as if students come with a left hand and a far-left hand. Not so different from many LAC's but still sometimes to an eye-rolling degree.</p>
<p>And this from an voting-for-Obama (after Hillary) Democrat.</p>
<p>Bureaucracy. There's a lot of rules and paperwork and indifferent bureaucrats who run loose around here. You've really got to be dedicated to getting what you want so you can overcome the paperwork hurdles.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>TheDad is right. Politically correct jargon has obstructed real, down-and-dirty discussion of issues that Smith (or any campus!) faces: racism, class prejudice, political extremism, religious intolerance, etc. I appreciate the fact that people are at least willing to have discussions and are more than willing to point out intolerant attitudes, but there is certainly a "party line" to tow. Conservative and moderate students face a lot of resistance (and, sometimes, outright hostility) from the very vocal left/progressive segment. And people can be very hypocritical. </p></li>
<li><p>The Daily Jolt brings out the worst in all of us. Avoid it at all costs.</p></li>
<li><p>Parking in the winter can be a real pain in the butt because of frequent snow emergencies in December and February. You probably don't have to worry about this as an international student!</p></li>
</ol>
<p>**Do NOT believe anyone who tells you the food sucks at Smith. It's not great, of course, because it's cooked en masse for 2700 people, but it's a 4-star meal compared to other college fare. Count your blessings!</p>
<p>About the food: maybe I've lucked out but every time I've eaten on campus it's been reasonably good. Not four-star, as Artsy says, but decent. Biggest complaint is that the selections get boring after a while and a run into town for Japanese (Osaka) or Thai (the place near the bridge) or, for a treat, the Indian place whose name escapes me at the moment. Unlike a lot of college towns, NoHo has a good number of good restaurants to escape to. Mmmph...don't forget the Pasta place on Main (they have more than pasta). I also like the Eastside Grill and then, oh darn, the really good Italian place. But I digress. The campus food is decent and the off-campus splurges are very good.</p>
<p>Christine, I agree with artsy_smithie's claim that people are hypocritical in that free speech is tolerated unless you say something that goes against the norm. I am conservative, and I've learned to just not say anything. It doesn't bother me though, as these types of discussions with people I don't really know usually aren't fruitful.</p>
<p>Doesn't not saying anything sort of perpetuate the problem? </p>
<p>I tend to think that not all Smithies are overly-PC or hypocritical about free speech, I think rather that the conservative organizations on Smith do very little to present coherent alternatives to the dominant opinion. The only time you hear anything of a conservative bent on campus is usually coming from so deep in right-field it's hard to respond with anything other than incredulity and frustration. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, rather than contributing to the discussion most conservative students stay quiet and thus let the more ultra-right wing elements speak for and characterize them. IMO Smithies would be open to conservative opinions if they ever heard any that didn't come from the deepest part of homophobic right field.</p>
<p>I agree, S&P, that not saying anything does, in a way, perpetrate the problem, but it's also a catch-22. In general, the campus is so used to hearing only the voices of the far right that a more moderate conservative is immediately lumped in with them. I'm sure that, over time, I could easily present my opinions, but given the number of things on my plate right now, engaging in political battles has been put on the proverbial back burner. Yes, PC is an issue on campus, but there are a lot of other battles I'm currently fighting that are more important to me. It's hard enough to find time to do the things I already am doing, and I'm not going to expend extra resources (time, energy, etc.) presenting my view.</p>
<p>This isn't to say that I don't talk about politics. I do. I just do it within a small group of friends who have come to know me and are willing to hear me out completely.</p>
<p>I understand picking your battles, but one of things that irks me when people complain about how PC the campus is or how "oppressed" or "persecuted" campus conservatives are is that campus conservatives play a bigger role in that than any supposed "lefty Smithies". Even the super far right folks on campus, the ones that occasionally do speak up, only do so sporadically and then complain when people don't respond to them in a way they consider "promoting dialogue." </p>
<p>Campus dialogue can't and won't change or become any more balanced unless campus conservatives and moderates take responsibility for their own silences. If anything liberal Smithies should be excused for thinking that everyone thinks like them because those who "think outside the norm" rarely express their opinions except in occasional hateful invective.</p>
<p>I transferred out. But I still love Smith, don't get me wrong! </p>
<p>1) PC was definitely part of the reason why I left. People were just... hypocritical. They didn't say what they really meant. I've heard some harassment to the conservative students, but that was back in 2004. It's supposed be such a tolerant community that even if you have a little smirk, don't say it aloud. I had to write everything down in my room that i wouldn't otherwise be able to say in the public.</p>
<p>2) Academics, specifically the liberal arts aspect. I thought the history department could be stronger given the excellence in many other departments, particularly the Art, English, Poly Sci, and econ. Smith seemed to be neglecting liberal arts in favor of sciences and its putting in a lot of money towards the sciences, at the sacrifice of liberal arts departments.</p>
<p>3) NoHo can get rather isolating, especially if it's not easy to get home to your hometown. But you're from China and you have your Logan airport in Boston and Bradley in Hartford, CT that you can go to. But I lived where driving is pretty much a must in order to get home to and I didn't have a car.</p>
<p>My top 3 reasons for leaving the campus.</p>
<p>But I also realized that its study abroad policies were extremely stupid and wasteful and perhaps a bit greedy of Smith to force all students to pay $45K in order to transfer academic credits, even if the intended program and airfare combined was much cheaper.</p>
<p>Regardless of which side is more or less guilty of being oppressive, I am going to be annoyed when my opinions are stifled because people are too immature to behave respectfully (especially since I myself try really hard to hear everyone out, regardless of whether I agree or not). After trying repeatedly to get my point across, I've given up, and believe me, that process has taken all of last year. If that bothers you, then too bad. IMO, campus dialogue can't and won't change until people are free to express opinions without having to defend themselves from such logical counterarguments such as "you're an idiot."</p>
<p>Depends on how you look at things. Smith is definitely boosting the sciences but I don't know that it's at the expense of the liberal arts. I've heard a couple of different beefs about the History department bu the four departments that TMP talk about (Art, English, Government, Econ) get pretty much raves from everyone and I can attest to the last two first hand.</p>
<p>S&P, one has limited energy and has to decide how to spend it. One had to keep it quiet at Smith if one were a Hillary supporter, let alone a Republican. Smith isn't the only place where you can cause massive brain cramps by being both liberal and religious but it's one of the places where it garners a starker reaction.</p>
<p>The PC is bad enough that I (and I think D) objected to it even when were in agreement with a particular stance. Of course, I got odd reactions in 1972 when I questioned whether it was a healthy thing that precincts near the college I went to had gone 99 percent for McGovern.</p>