Going to such a small college

Vernalagnia
Tue, 21 Dec 2010 07:37:51 +0000

I’m a junior at Bennington (I transferred in at the beginning of my sophomore year, so I’ve been there for a year and a half now) and there are a lot of downsides, and a lot of positives to Bennington’s size. You won’t run out of new people to meet, even with the size as small as it is. When I go into a class room I know about half the people there, but I’m always meeting people that I’ve seen around but never talked to. With that said, it can be hard to avoid people when there isn’t a crowd to get lost in, for whatever reason that you want to avoid someone be it a creepy stalker or ex, etc. With that said the small size allows the college to have a very tight knit close community, wonderful housing, above average food, etc. The main downside, to me, is that our small student body means that we have a limited number of faculty. Now, this still pans out in the positive in a lots of ways, and low student:teacher ratios are well maintained. It limits the number of people that you can study with, but also leads to closer working relationships with the people who teach in your area. I study biology, and there are only three biology faculty at Bennington, but I know all of them very well, and I feel like I get more out of my classes because I have such a strong working relationship with them.

Yeah, I’m losing my train of thought, so if you have any specific questions shoot me a PM or post here. I’d be happy to answer.