A Few Quick Questions About Grinnell

bethievt
Tue, 24 Apr 2012 17:48:46 +0000

My son majored in history, also studied French, Arabic and Russian. As far as I can tell, every one of his history and languages profs was excellent. Everyone raves about the Arabic prof. He did complain about one religion prof, who gave him the worst grade he’d ever gotten with no warning. I’ve checked a few of his profs on Ratemyprofessor.com and his descriptions matched the ratings there quite well, so you can use that, with a few grains of salt. Also I think there’s a way Grinnell students communicate with each other online, so that might be a way of getting info about profs.

He certainly spent plenty of time studying, but always had time for parties and hanging out with friends on the weekend. His first year roomie, who double majored in math and physics, spent much more time studying than my son did, but still had friends, had a little time for sports and found a girlfriend. I think you can somewhat control how intense you make it and you will have an advisor right away who can probably guide you. Partly depends on your personality too. If you stressed out about “everything” in high school, you likely will in college too. For my son, the great social fit made his years at Grinnell much less stressful than his high school years.