<p>As a senior who is graduating this week, I feel it's a good time to make some reflections about my time at Carleton. I don't expect people to care about my personal views, but I think many of my experiences parallel the experiences of others, so here they are if you care to read them:</p>
<p>My four years at Carleton have been a mixed bag. I have met some awesome people, and also some people that I wouldn't care to see again. I have gotten a great education, had wonderful professors who transformed me into a more critical, articulate, and questioning person, but I have also gone through periods of crippling stress that broke me down and wore me out. I've had good interactions with staff-people at my job, but I've also had some horrible interactions with the administration. On the whole, I'm glad I came, but I'm also glad to be leaving.</p>
<p>I guess the best thing about going to Carleton was the education I received. I entered college with a strong high school education, complete with many AP courses, but I'm leaving college with more knowledge than I would have thought possible. I feel like I truly have become an expert in my major, and feel a huge sense of accomplishment for making it through comps. I feel confident that I could go to grad school in that (or other) fields and be successful. My Carleton education has given me an ability to think, interpret, argue, and persuade that I did not have before, and I believe these skills will be indispensable to my future.</p>
<p>The biggest negatives at Carleton have been some of my experiences with the students, although there have been many positives in this regard as well. As I have said in other threads, I have found a lot of students to be disrespectful, rude, obnoxious, and irreverent towards other students and the community. Deliberately breaking bottles at 3am in the streets of Northfield, tearing doors off of hinges, having a holier-than-thou attitude, and being rude to staff-members are just some of the things that bothered me on a weekly basis here. I am glad to be getting away from that. I've met great friends here who I will miss dearly, but I wish that the general culture of students here (or maybe just the ones that make the most noise) did not have to be so off-putting.</p>
<p>The administration seems to spend more time worrying about Carleton's image and less time actually helping make students' experiences better. They have some really asinine policies, some that are blatantly discriminatory (e.g. if a girl makes a complaint about a guy, the guy is punished with no questions asked, but not the other way around). They are also not very receptive to complaints when they're raised, and have been extremely rude to me in the past. They seem very manipulative and corporate in how they conduct their business. For example, I get the sense that every senior event, and the reunion events are just ploys to get us to give money after we graduate. They do not seem to show genuine respect and appreciation for the students. In light of what I wrote above though, maybe that's partially the students' fault as well.</p>
<p>On the whole, the biggest things I'll miss are my friends, and the professors; and I guess those are really the two most important things in college, so I guess I can't complain too much. I wish Carleton could be better in many ways, but it's excellent in many other ways, so it really depends on how much you take advantage of the great things, and how easily you can ignore the annoying things as to how much you will like Carleton. If you can separate the two, and appreciate the value, while acknowledging the problems, I think you will find that the value you gained was still worth it.</p>