<p>As a former HTC student, I sometimes feel compelled to temper the enthusiasm for the program that pervades these forums.</p>
<p>I’m sure that anyone who has considered the college has been told of all the “personal attention” that students there get, and that if you don’t pull your weight, i.e., get a B or above in every class, the attention “may not be welcomed.” For me, and for many other former students, the attention, good or bad, never was welcomed because it was rarely substantive, genuine, or helpful. For example, I was heartily praised by the dean (gasp) one quarter after getting a hyperbolic (and suspect) evaluation from a tutor (“brilliant, writing well enough for top grad programs already”) and subsequently harangued for a hard-earned B- in a Russian class. </p>
<p>So, unless every ten weeks you need someone to convince you that you’re God’s gift to the world, the attention is useless, and actually somewhat annoying. It encourages you to get wrapped up in what others think and discourages the intellectual risk-taking and experimentation that ought to characterize your undergraduate experience. (The first couple of years, at least.)</p>
<p>Three of the tutors I had at OU were very good. The other three weren’t, and I was stuck trying to figure out what they wanted so that I could earn a grade that accounted for more than half of my credit hours. The majority of my classmates in the English program rarely participated in discussions, and I was stuck with them for the whole year (some of them for two years).</p>
<p>The institution I now attend has no tutorial program. It is a medium-sized state-related (not fully public) university in an urban environment. The academic profile of the student body is relatively high, and what I like about it is that it’s diffuse enough that people here don’t have to define themselves by their roles as students, as I found was too often the case at OU. And while one can easily fade into the background (and it’s nice to have that option) I’ve had TAs who have been more eager to help and more in touch with the best scholarship than some of my better tenured tutors at OU. Research opportunities are even more plentiful here; all you have to do is pursue them.</p>
<p>When I was in HTC the dean reminded everyone that being in the college is a “privilege, not a right.” Maybe she was speaking mainly to the half of the students who felt entitled to everything. But what bothers me most about that statement is that it implies that HTC is somehow unique in that respect, when the truth is that any kind of institutional education ought to be considered a privilege – ask anyone who doesn’t have the money for it or who has suffered a health problem or another precluding circumstance. I find it a bit ironic, too, considering that the college sustains itself by taking for granted professors who are barely compensated (if they are at all) for their duties as tutors. </p>
<p>As much as it would like to have you believe, the HTC is NOT an institution in its own right – it is merely a means for the university to try to improve its academic profile. You ought to be flattered that they’re courting you, but seriously consider whether you want to be part of Ohio University’s quest for an ideal. I was recruited aggressively in the spring of '03 when the college was engaged in the ethically dubious practice of setting the matriculation decision deadline 15 days before everyone else’s. Without that pressure (though of course it’s impossible to say) I might have saved myself some tuition money and a year and a half or so of anguish.</p>
<p>Being a “big fish in a small pond” – their words, not mine – is not all it’s cracked up to be.</p>