<p>Hi! I just wanted to know what you haven’t liked about your Rice experience. Any advice is much appreciated.</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/rice-university/1123679-rices-disadvantages.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/rice-university/1123679-rices-disadvantages.html</a></p>
<p>Jones. That’s about it.</p>
<p>The humidity in the summers is really unbearable at times, but I guess the rest of the seasons make up for it. Also, ditto to the commenter above. Jones.</p>
<p>Well Martel isn’t even a college, so… ;)</p>
<p>Course variety is not going to be as large as other larger peer institutions, like Duke, Cornell, UPenn, etc.</p>
<p>To be perfectly honest, a large portion of the student body seem to come in with less than refined social skills, which makes it a bit difficult to adjust as a natural extrovert. </p>
<p>That’s been my biggest complaint.</p>
<p>I agree Tilgaham. A lot of people at Rice come in as socially awkward. And I was one of them myself. At Duke though, there seems to be a lot more socially normal people. But there’s definitely more snooty people at Duke, even though most of the people here are chill.</p>
<p>Wouldn’t that kind of give a socially skilled person a bit of an advantage, though? Yeah you might have to adjust, but I would think you would have more of a presence/influence, then. I’m not really sure how to put it into words, but I feel like that situation would actually be a bit of an advantage.</p>
<p>@ FallenAngel9: It does give a socially skilled person an advantage I think. But at the same time, socially skilled people would probably prefer to be around other socially skilled individuals. I’m not claiming that I’m socially skilled; I am socially awkward many times. While I probably fit in more as the typical Rice student versus the typical Duke student, I think it is sometimes good to go to a school that will push you to be different in a positive way. I think after coming to Duke, my social skills have improved, whereas they stayed somewhat stagnant at Rice for me. Being around other somewhat socially awkward people gives me less motivation to improve my social skills, which are very necessary for networking/later life success.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, I want to make it clear that not everyone at Rice is socially awkward. There are many socially adept people there, but I would say I felt the presence of the social awkwardness my freshman year at Rice. However, I think the residential college system does a good job in turning a initially group of socially awkward students into more socially refined adults. Plus, being socially awkward is not necessarily bad thing… I much prefer feeling the presence of social awkwardness in a student body versus feeling the presence of snobs in a student body (which I sometimes feel about the Duke student body… but again, the snobs are in the minority here because I also met some of the most down-to-earth people here). I will say that Rice students are among the friendliest, most down-to-earth students you will ever meet though… that is true for the majority of Rice students.</p>
<p>Also, I want to make it clear that the majority of the students at Duke aren’t snobs… I hope it didn’t come off as that way. Also, I hope it is also clear that there are plenty of socially adept people at Rice as well.</p>
<p>Perhaps there are a larger percentage of kids who “march to their own drummer” at Rice than at UT or Duke - I’m not sure how you’d measure it. My kids are both out-going, friendly, and definitely not socially awkward, and they found plenty of kids like that at Rice, along with super-focused career oriented kids, and laid-back easy-going kids and kids of all shapes, sizes, persuasions and religions and philosophies and cultures. </p>
<p>But the cool thing about college is that you are in a place where you can see beyond that, and into accepting people and learning from people with so many different perspectives… No more high school cliques! 
</p>
<p>That slightly awkward person becomes someone you can count on to tutor you in O-Chem, or supervise you on a committee, or play pickup soccer with…
I’ve met a lot of Rice kids over the last 7 years, and had both a women and men’s club sport teams camp out in my house many, many times – without exception, I’ve been so impressed by the polite, friendly, unassuming and disciplined behavior of the teams. Kids who played at their sport all day, then came back the house, exhausted, only to pull out a flute (practice time!), engineering homework, English assignments etc, or hang out and chat. Nice people. </p>
<p>Anyway - jmho. Rice is a good place to be. ;)</p>