<p>I'm not gonna be able to visit far away colleges and I feel like research has only gotten me so far. Can any L&C college students tell me about
- the general atmosphere (academic + social life, and whether the pendulum sways more toward one or the other)
- surrounding life + whether the school feels really isolated or integrated
- research opportunities--are they hard to get or can anyone start researching right away if they seek out opportunities?
- what are the students like? Is the college diverse or is there a "typical" student?
- history, anthropology, other social science majors--generally, are they amazing, good, okay, or subpar?
- the quality of the premed program or advising/whether it has much success or not</p>
<p>I can offer my daughter’s perspective. She graduated from there a year ago
- She enjoyed both academics and social life. There is always something to do socially. It’s up to the student to keep on the academic track
- The school has a bus that goes downtown every day. My D became adept at riding the Portland bus system to get to places outside of downtown.
- You can find opportunities through the college and your teachers. She did research two different summers.
- There is still a high %age of white students but with internationals and everything included it’s fairly diverse. One roommate was from Hong Kong.
- I have no idea. DD was a math major, Japanese and Econ minors.<br>
- Don’t know.</p>
<p>Good luck</p>
<p>Hi! Current student (rising sophomore) here. First, if money is what’s keeping you from visiting and you want to, consider applying to the L.E.A.D. program, which is a program to visit campus paid for by the college, for “students who are leaders in their schools and communities and those who have a demonstrated interest in learning more about Lewis & Clark College.” Preference is given to “underrepresented students of color and first generation college students,” but I think anyone who applies and tells them how much they want to visit, they’d have a good shot. Here’s the link to that: <a href=“Admissions • Lewis & Clark”>https://college.lclark.edu/offices/admissions/multicultural_recruitment/lead/</a></p>
<p>To answer your questions (apologies in advance if these are kind of ramble-y)
- the general atmosphere: I think both academics and a social life are important to most students. One thing that I’ve loved is that the academic environment is very non-competitive. This doesn’t mean that it’s not challenging or engaging, but it’s friendly and laid-back (in a good way). Coming from a pretty competitive high school, I’ve really enjoyed this environment. Social life-wise, there’s always stuff going on to do put on by the school/various student groups, and downtown Portland is a free, 20 minute bus trip away, like Erin’s Dad mentioned. I’ve had time/made time to do a lot of cool things besides homework for my classes. There’s been a ton of phenomenal speakers I’ve seen at the college, and depending on the time of year, those talks have been really well attended. I think which way the metaphorical pendulum sways depends on the student.
- surrounding life: The campus itself feels fairly isolated–it’s right at the edge of Tryon Creek State Park (a forest that’s really nice to wander through/run in if you’re into that), and residential neighborhoods. It kind of feels like you’re going to school in a forest. On the other hand, I think most students are pretty integrated into Portland. The bus runs all day and pretty late at night on the weekends, and public transportation in Portland makes it easy to get all around the city. I know a lot of people who volunteer and work in Portland. Being integrated into the outside community was a factor that was important to me when I was picking a school, and I haven’t been disappointed. Personally, I am typically in downtown Portland at least once a week, and in Lake Oswego once a week. Since it’s so easy to get off campus, I haven’t felt like I’m living in a bubble.
- research opportunities: I think this is really going to depend by department, so I’d try contacting the department chairs of the ones you’re interested in. I know for sure that there are in the science and math departments; I’m not sure about others. Also, if you find something you want to do off campus, there are several ways you can apply for funding from the school.
- students: Students are more diverse than I was expecting, in terms of “types” of people (If you’re talking racial diversity, it’s pretty white, but has a fairly diverse-in-terms-of-nationality student bodies.) I don’t think there’s a ‘typical’ student, but that feels like a cop-out… If this is helpful, I saw this from the Student Alumni Association as some of the things that unite L&C students, alum, and faculty: “uncommon journeys, global and local engagement, connection to Portland, and lifelong learning”, and as general as that is, I agree with it.
- I’m not sure about these departments–I’d email professors/heads of departments, or email admissions and ask them to put you in contact with some current students in those departments. I can say that regardless of department, every teacher I’ve had so far has been phenomenal and has been really interested in knowing me as a person.
- pre-med: I was originally going to do a pre-med track before I realized that I wanted to focus on computer science. Both the career development center and the official pre-med advisor were happy to talk to me and give me a good idea about what courses to take/when to take them, and a long list of local places that I could contact to volunteer/do research/complete internships to get experience. I was also part of the pre-health club, which besides the delicious pizza at meetings put on a career panel for pre-med/pre-health students, featuring mainly alums who were working in the medical field or were medical students. They were all happy to talk, give advice, and give their contact information to be mentors. So I think if you are proactive there’s a really good support network that you can find. I don’t know about success rates for getting into med-school.</p>
<p>This ended up being pretty long, but I hope some parts are useful! I really love going to school here and I’m really happy that I chose L&C! Good luck with the college search!</p>