<p>I posed this question in the Wellesley forum, and thought I should ask it of all CCers.</p>
<p>Do you think you could easily transplant your college experience to another institution? Does it really matter where you are now or if you chose a different school would you be almost the same person, but with different friends? Are you doing things that you may not have been able to do at another institution? Did you know those activities existed when you applied/decided or did you happen upon them randomly once you got there?</p>
<p>Would I have the exact same experience somewhere else - No. I can say that resoundingly and unequivocally. just one example: my fraternity was a big part of my college experience and I know that greek systems are very different at other schools - even schools which seem very similar in many other categories (location, size, etc).</p>
<p>Now, would I have found an experience that I would have cherished just as much as I cherish my time in college? That’s a lot harder to answer. There are certainly a lot of possibilities from being a lot worse, to being a lot better. It’s hard to say for certain b/c most people only have one college experience. If you have a crappy one, then you probably wonder what might have been. If you’re like me, and had a great experience, then what might have been doesn’t matter b/c you wouldn’t trade it for anything.</p>
<p>I definitely couldn’t have had the same experience any where else. Could I have had a good experience elsewhere? Probably. But it wouldn’t be the same. For starters I’d be cheering for different sports teams;) But in all serious, every school is unique, as are the schools’ surroundings. I’m sure that I could still have a good experience elsewhere, and I’m sure I could have found awesome friends elsewhere as well. But the overall experience would be different, for both simple reasons (like the sports team thing) to more intangible reasons. I picked UNH because it felt right, and it still does. I’m almost halfway through my sophomore year. If I’d gone to some of the other schools on my list I wouldn’t be in the major I’m in now. I probably would not have seen an opera or a professional ballet, on campus either. Some of the schools didn’t have honors programs, so I wouldn’t have been an honors program peer mentor either. Things would definitely have been different if I’d gone elsewhere</p>
<p>I wouldn’t be the same person, but I don’t know if I’d be a better one. How do you get people to objectively justify their life? Unless they had the worst experience imaginable, or the best experience ever, I really don’t think you’re going to get a yes/no answer here.</p>
<p>I don’t think you have to have the worst or best experience to answer the question. I am asking if you think the school you went to makes a difference in what you experienced. The convential wisdom is that a smart student will be successful no matter where they end up, even if it is not a top school because that person is already a high achiever. I was hoping that people could share some of the things they learned or did that made their experience unique to the school that they had chosen.</p>
<p>For me, like monarchsfan 16, I would not have the same major if I went to a different school. I never did any Astronomy before going to Wellesley and saw the observatory on the open campus day as a prospective student in April. I never thought to consider Astronomy when looking at any of my colleges. I decided to take an Astronomy class in the fall of my first year, which isn’t terribly unique. Many colleges don’t have an on campus observatory, but what makes Wellesley’s observatory unique was the atmosphere surrounding the (pretty amazing) facilities. People are there even if no observing is going on since all classes are taught in the building, and the faculty offices are located there as well. Hence there is a huge sense of department communtity that I didn’t see when I did an internship in a similiar department at another school. There are also lots of opportunities for jobs at the observatory that are unique to the department and its programs. As a first semester student, I got paid to learn how to operate giant 150 year old telescopes, something that kept me involved when I wasn’t taking Astronomy classes.
Astronomy isn’t the only Wellesleyish thing I do. I play the bells in Wellesley’s Tower. As it turns out, Yale (which I got rejected from) also has a Carillon and student carillonneurs, but I never knew that when I applied. Who knows whether I would have found the carillon at Yale?</p>
<p>If you’re only asking where you end up, then there’s probably less chance of that happening identically than just having a similar enjoyment during college. The connections, the environment, the people are different and all those things influence you.</p>
<p>I mean I go to med school in Nebraska, where I went for undergrad. Originally from Kansas, if I had gone to a school somewhere other than in Nebraska, then I likely would never have even applied to medical schools in Nebraska, let alone end up there…and that’s assuming that I would have remained pre-med (which seems likely but who knows).</p>
<p>I do know that had I gone to one of my other choices for school, I would likely have not joined a fraternity. And I know that if I had not joined a fraternity at the school I did attend, that I wouldn’t be in medical school. Does that mean if I hadn’t joined a fraternity at another school, I wouldn’t be in med school? who knows? I do believe my non-medical career goals would have been very different. If I wasn’t in medical school now, I’d be going to grad school for student administration, and hopefully become the director of greek affairs somewhere, a career goal that is contingent on having worked closely with the Director of Greek Affairs at my undergrad. Going to another school, even if I had been greek, it’s doubtful that I would have had that similar inspiration and would have found something else.</p>
<p>I guess what I’m saying is that successful students will be successful, but they’re certainly unlikely to end up in the exact same spot. The more broad the goals the more likely (like if I just said “would I be at any medical school?” - that seems much more possible than “would I be at my current medical school?”)</p>
<p>I’m at the school I’m at because it’s close to where I live (5 minutes), the commuter parking is free, the profs are good (and some are actually conservative!), it has a decent gym, and there’s so few activities on campus that I don’t feel guilty not participating in any.</p>
<p>I don’t think I’d be as well off at a place with larger class sizes because I like to ask a lot of questions in class. If I were in some auditorium classroom and couldn’t speak to a prof in the middle of a lecture I’d flip out.</p>
<p>And if I were at a school where all people did was partied chances are I’d be off campus more than I’d be on. No way I’d be a residential student–how people can share a bathroom with 50 other guys is beyond me.</p>
<p>Nope, even when I was college-hunting, there was only one school I really seriously considered alongside USC (and no, I’m not saying which, and no, I was not rejected from said school - USC ended up 1st and only choice) for undergrad. Now that I’m looking ahead to grad school I’m open to more possibilities, but that’s because at that stage of my education/career/life/etc I’ll be looking for different things. But undergrad, nope, happy where I am. Probably wouldn’t like it so much anywhere else.</p>