Hi, I am a senior in high school trying to figure out where I should go to college! I am torn between University of San Diego and Chapman University (admitted to both). To give you some perspective, I am a black female from South Florida, so I am moving pretty far from home. That being said, something I was looking for was a sense of community on campus, somewhere where I could live AND learn and be around people like me all the time. I will be living on campus. I like to get involved, so I plan on joining some clubs and greek life, maybe even intramural sports. I have no idea what I want to major in but I applied with communications (not sure if I am going to stick with it). I always thought I wanted to attend a huge university, and also got admitted to University of Florida and San Diego State University, but after visiting all these schools, USD and Chapman are now my top two. Can any current or past students at these schools give me any feedback on their experiences??? I would love to here about student life, school spirit, academics, networking opportunities, and post-graduate success. Anything helps. Don’t be afraid to be completely honest, I really appreciate it!
You’ve probably made a decision by now but I’ll respond anyway. In all honesty, both USD and Chapman have tendencies to be cliquey. For example, I go to USD and our professor said to describe USD and one kid said, USD is like the coolest high school ever. That being said USD is a little high school-ish but it really doesn’t matter too much, you just need to be social and not a loner in order to have friends here because a lot of the kids here are super social. I would say that the majority of students at USD are very SoCal and gives off a beach vibe. Everyone is laid back, accepting, and just very chill. Neither school is particularly diverse. For example it feels like 80 percent of USD is caucasian which could be a little alienating if you are used to having a lot of friends from different cultural backgrounds but again everyone here is super accepting and chill with each other. Sometimes people from surrounding colleges like SDSU or Point Loma Nazarene University consider USD students stuck up or privileged which is in all fairness true to an extent. Many students here come from a wealthier background but all of us are still grounded to reality and do not blatantly show sings of wealth. In my experience people at USD are privileged but are kind to one another and do not judge you based on your financial background as one might at Chapman emphasis on might because it don’t want to be tearing people at chapman down. Still, from what I have heard from some friends who go to Chapman or have transferred from Chapman to USD is that there is also a decent population of student from wealthy families but they are more concerned with material possessions, clothes, and the way you look, a more superficial vibe to the student population/ I doubt that everyone is like that and there is probably a balanced student population.
In order to have a social life at USD I would say the easiest way is to join greek life but you could also join a bunch of clubs and intramural sports as well and have a close knit group of friends as well. The most common activity for us to to just go to the beach, surf, snorkel, paddle board, camp, skate, or hike. USD have a decent population of people who like outdoor activities.
Greek life is where you will get more of a typical college party scene but USD itself is not a party school, so def going greek life if that is something that you want. Unfortunately school spirit is not so great. We have D1 sports which is cool but usually the opposing team will have more school spirit at games than us, but if you go to a game with some friends I don’t think it matters too much. I fairly certain that Chapman’s school spirit is lacking as well. I would say we have strong academics at USD, our professors have strong academic and professional backgrounds and are really knowledgeable about their course of study. All of your class sizes will be small so you’ll get to have a good relationship with your professor who will definitely know your name and who you are. Networking opportunities are also really great we often have career fairs, lectures from professionals, and services that provide mock interviews to practice jobs interviews and resume and cover letter advising. The career fairs are cool because a bunch of different companies come from Southern California and around the U.S. to have very informal interviews and discussions which end up with students giving the companies our resumes. The lectures from professionals which may be for all students on campus or for specific classes, are also cool because we get to learn a lot about individual companies from people who work at them and then get to talk to them at the end and possibly get their business card. The career services department it cool because it offers a ton of different services such as providing USD Student with an online site that has all of the jobs or internships that you could apply to based on your student stats and it also provides free professional headshots for your linkedIN account which I thought was pretty nice.
At the end of the day I personally love USD because of the cool people who go here, the campus vibe, and the academics.
wow can’t believe I just wrote so much, the struggles of having nothing to do during summer session.