<p>Often ‘tough’ and ‘best’ go together…</p>
<p>S89 you may be my daughter! My heart breaks for you, and I know that you will settle in before the semester is over! There are lots and lots of students out there just waiting to be your friend!</p>
<p>I have spent hours on the phone each day with d who is at a top LAC, loves professors, loves campus, already has a part time job, loves room mate, but feels like a total outsider. She does not drink/smoke/party/has a boyfriend, she just cannot find friends. </p>
<p>I keep reminding you/her, it has only been a few weeks, transition is tough, it does take time to create a niche for yourself away from HS, parents, religious institutions, all those touchstones and people that have told you who you are and how to behave for so long…now it is all yours to choose, and your obligation to create, your own “world”. </p>
<p>I suggested that d try the library on Saturday night. There are a lot of nice people (not just antisocial overachievers) who spend weekend evenings in the library. It is a safe, pleasant, happy place, you will meet others who want to get out of their rooms, see other people, do a little reading, catch up on the news, read magazines, have a random conversation, go out for coffee, meet others who are just not into the “drink till you drop” scene. Others like you who are happy to sleep in their own room, not on the floor of some person you do not know at a dorm across campus.</p>
<p>Good luck and hang in there…lots of love and hugs and prayers coming your way…</p>
<p>Concerning religious organizations, Mini, no pigeon-holes intended, hence my next sentence in post #31
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<p>Point is, back in my day, these student organizations were all exclusive for practitioners of each faith. This is no longer the way they operate. Now, all are welcome. I’m glad it’s working well as some posters here report about their own kids.</p>
<p>“Often ‘tough’ and ‘best’ go together…”</p>
<p>Absolutely true. But “reputation” rarely makes up the three-legged stool.</p>
<p>I never used the word ‘reputation’.</p>
<p>My sons look for those profs with the best reputation for delivering challenging material. Sometimes they will sit in on a few classes or talk to TAs or older students to find those classes. I’ve seen the older one sift through RateMyProf.com with the cunning of an editor from HLR. He knows what he’s looking for, even though, at his school, it means 3.7 GPA be damned.</p>
<p>This morning, my freshman told me he got permission to take that junior/senior class–at which point I gulped and encouraged him to seek out the Writing Center. :eek: He doesn’t write well enough to be competitive in a junior/senior geopolitical class. He will more than hold his own in any discussion, but when it comes to papers and tests? GPA blood might be spilled. That’s okay by me. </p>
<p>He said, “The important thing is that I love what I am learning.”</p>
<p>Yuuuuup.</p>
<p>My d’s best experience was with a prof who had the lowest possible score on RateMyProf. The class started with 6 and by the time they were done, was down to three. (This was one of the most famous - but also most feared - profs on campus). She said the prof was self-centered, unreasonable, overly critical, domineering, ridiculously demanding, and sometimes close to uncivil, and perhaps occasionally even steps over that line. Her papers would come back virtually shredded. Also the the most brilliant musicological mind she has ever encountered.</p>
<p>She is taking another class from him this term. The class is already down to 5, and falling.</p>
<p>Thank heavens she never looked at RateMyProfessors! ;)</p>
<p>Mini,
I too learned the most from a demanding prof. She was tough, but never uncivil. Two of her grad students went on to become colege deans and a president. She taught me more about writing scientific papers than I learned in grad school.</p>
<p>I’m not sure I would have been pleased if she had ever been verbally abusive. She was simply straightforward with her criticism.</p>
<p>that’s the thing with my sister. she doesn’t click with people, she hates doing things with people, etc. the only friends she has are this one girl who she grew up with who lived up the street (the one who is commuting to her school), and then a few of that girls friends are now her friends as well. that’s it. she has absolutely 0 people skills whatsoever.</p>
<p>She did find a club she’s interested in joining but she has a night class on the night that they meet, so she said maybe she will join next semester. she said she would hate to be the person taking the tickets because if some moron came up acting stupid she’d probably punch him in the face or say something extremely not nice.</p>
<p>RMP can be a help determining which profs are ‘best’–as in the most challenging. It’s possible to read between the lines of the reviews and determine which professors are ‘tough’ (low graders) but challenging. </p>
<p>Second bookworm’s opinion that abusive professors are not challenging or worthwhile. Been there, done that-- in architecture school.</p>
<p>Just read this thread–my advice is twofold–while you are at this school, do everything you can, including all the good advice on this thread, to make it work for you.</p>
<p>BUT, and this is a huge BUT, don’t buy into the “every school’s the same refrain,” which some people are posting, and which you seem to already feel.</p>
<p>As Mini has said, every school is NOT the same. Your posts could have been my D’s phone calls home her freshman year–both the comments about the unrelenting drinking atmosphere, and the lack of intensity in classes (she had no problem with the profs, but the students were just dead in class, no discussion, no curiosity, etc). She spent her fall term trying to make it work–joining clubs, meeting with profs, looking for the other nondrinkers. but it WAS work–it was never fun. She was always swimming upstream.</p>
<p>Over winter break, she started researching transfers–she looked for the engaged students and less monotone social scene that she’d hoped to find before. She got accepted into three great schools, while at the same time looking for ways to make the first school work (special study abroad opportunities, etc.)</p>
<p>In the end, though, she realized that no matter what she did, she was always going to be gritting her teeth to make it work. What kind of college experience is that?</p>
<p>She transfered, and found a 180 degree different atmosphere, both academically and socially.</p>
<p>I am not writing this to say you should transfer. Transfering is very, very hard, and should be a last resort. But for some, it’s necessary, and all colleges aren’t the same. If the one you are at really doesn’t work for you, there is a fabulous school somewhere else that would. Do what you can to be happy at your presnt school, but if you’re still not, don’t resign yourself to unhappiness.</p>
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<p>I second to that. In the 4th tier state school I teach, six story library is most often packed. Drinking on campus is not allowed, even for faculty.</p>