Some concerns about Kalamazoo College

So, I will be attending Kalamazoo College in the fall and I have a few questions:

  1. How are the dorms? (I was placed in Harmon and it seemed pretty small, but not unusually or anything. Also, I have only been on 3 college tours. Therefore, I haven’t had a chance to compare them to other dorms.)
  1. How do you loft the bed? (I know the school doesn't provide lofting plans or anything. So, can someone who has lofted their bed in the past please tell me how my roommate and I would go about lofting our beds.)
  2. Are the classes as challenging as they say? (I strongly believe that being challenged promotes growth. Yet, I suffer from extreme anxiety and tend to obsessively schedule and over think things.)
  3. How does Kalamazoo compare to other college towns? (Kalamazoo constantly is referred to as a college town. However, when I visited the college last year it didn't really have the same vibe as previous college towns I've visited.)
  4. Any advice for navigating Kalamazoo's campus as a minority?

@Nehe239 Hi, my son will be at K as well.

  1. We have visited about 20 schools altogether. K dorms compare well to others.
  1. The bed can be lofted or separate and is higher off the floor than standard beds. My son's room already has the beds lofted. His roommate saw it before attending LandSea. I don't know if they will want to unloft them, but I'm sure there is help somehow.
  2. I overthink as well and am hoping that the students will find 3 classes at one time convenient so they can plan extracurricular involvement as well to balance it all out.

If not I think with good grades and after your first year you can take more than 3 classes if you want to. From what I’ve read and heard how challenging you will find the classes is all relative. Given your past academic experience, were you in AP classes, taking dual enrollment, IB? STEM wizard? Amazing writer? You will find out soon enough, but I hear ya on the anxiety. I’m not the one going and I am anxious as well!

  1. K doesn't seem to have that busy MAIN STREET like many college towns have, so maybe that's what you were missing. It's more spread out. It seems like an artsy, sleepy town that you can just meander around. But that's good, too. Everything is at a convenient distance, strip mall, downtown, airport. Looks like a great place to spend your college years.
  2. And good luck on the navigating. I know there have been some issues based on what I researched, there is still work to be done, but not more than most campuses in the Northeast or Midwest, or West Coast. And perhaps less than the other USA regions.

As a person of color in a big city, it is still shocking how some of the rest of the country deals with minorities. I’m curious to know what the POC experience will be this year given the political and societal climate.

It should be ok. Let us know if it’s not! One thing I did learn from my own college experience is to expand your network socially beyond just your comfort zone. K is a small school. Don’t make it even smaller.

Your experience at K and afterward will that much richer if you cross connect with as many disparate groups as possible. So much of life depends on whom you know. Don’t take the easy way to socializing because of assumed beliefs. You said you enjoy being challenged. Look at it as another way of being challenged to complement the other challenges college presents.

Good luck at K!

Thank you so much for your detailed response!

@Nehe239 You’re quite welcome! By the way, I started an unofficial FB group for parents of K students called “Kalamazoo College Parents.” If you want your parents to feel more connected to other parents and compare notes, have them join us there.