My dd at Berkeley sends me pics of wild turkeys roaming around her neighborhood? Better than the coyote or whatever by the stadium.
We had moose at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. In fact, one of our statistics labs was to go out and estimate the number of moose on campus by taking a survey of branches that had been nibbled on by moose.
My lad at Eckerd got a video of an alligator ambushing a duck with ducklings in a pond on his campus. A company paid him for rights to the (very short) video - mainly because itâs super rare to get the whole thing on film. Gators are stealthy, then quick!
Eckerd had the gator removed, but Iâm sure there are others that will move in eventually. He had a pic of large gator in a different area shortly before he graduated.
Still⊠for all their dangerous possibility and even with pets on campus, theyâve never had problems. Itâs just something to be aware of to avoid problems in the future. I wouldnât let any dogs swim in the ponds, etc.
Deer are incredibly common on our farm. I saw a doe with three fawns on a walk three days ago. We use hunting season to try to control the population a tad by taking out a doe or two per year, but it doesnât really seem to make a dent. It just provides us with tasty meat. Cars take out more. Car/deer accidents worry me as theyâre so common and unpredictable.
Our tour guide at Swarthmore kept remarking âIâd never even HEARD of this school before I applied! How do you know about this school? No one where I come from knows anything about it!â Real selling point there. Maybe Iâd heard of it because itâs one of the top LACs in the country? Just a guess.
It was a tour consisting mainly of her pointing out places where she likes to nap between classes and a list of the foods in the cafeteria she likes and doesnât like.
(Despite having an almost comically bad tour guide, it wasnât the âleast favoriteâ so maybe it doesnât belong on this thread.)
We are from a city in the south.
The deer upset DC2 and me because (1) while we occasionally catch glimpses of one or two that immediately scamper into the woods when weâre driving in a heavily wooded area, weâve never seen so many popping up in such a small area, and (2) the fact that they didnât flee when we got close made us wonder if any were rabid.
DC1 had a bad experience with a bat at camp several years ago, necessitating the rabies series and the cancellation of a beach trip. Thus, weâre all pretty skittish about non-domesticated animals which donât immediately run away from humans.
Now that yâall have explained that they came in peace, yes, I see how the deer were cute and furry and pleasant. Had someone warned us ahead of time, we wouldnât have been (as) freaked out.
We were POSITIVE that the tour guide would have some great deer stories or deer traditions to tell us â after all, weâve heard about squirrels on some of our tours â and when they werenât even mentioned it made us wonder. No deer drinking games at the frats? No deer pulling the mattresses down the hill during the mattress relays? Seems like a squandered opportunity for Lehigh to set its campus culture apart!
Most animals that are usually wild but donât run from humans have probably been fed or helped themselves to garbage cans. I was on a trip to Yosemite and my companions were oohing and ahhing over the deer that âcame right up to our cabin.â They were used to eating stuff left.
I would never have thought that deer would freak people out as they are pretty prolific in NE. We have a field near our house and nine times out of ten there will be deer grazing there. Turkeys, on the other hand, have gotten way out of hand here. They actually chase people around here.
Time to stop with the animal stories and get back to what this tread does best!
Two days ago a deer walked up onto my front porch and started eating from my flower pots⊠so I opened my front door thinking it would scare him off. Nope. Just stood there and looked at me. We were about two feet apart, deer had NO fear. My husband had to grab a broom and poke at him before he would leave - and even then, he just ambled away.
Tagged along on tour CU Boulder with niece last week. We are from Ohio, out west for a family trip. Nice campus - but 1st 10 min of 30 min info session was about how Marijuana is still illegal until you are 21 - kind of freaked my sister out
Itâs legal in Massachusetts now as well. (Plus several other states but MA has a large number of very popular universities.)
They probably focus on it out of the chute because too many parents wind up asking about. Absent a handful of ulra-religious schools, college kids will have access to marijuana if they want it regardless of which state they are in and the legality of it. Even states where it is legal, it is 21+. I havenât heard of a campus where it is legal to consume marijuana despite state laws.
On the other hand, as @doschicos notes, I havenât heard of many schools where marijuana use among 18-20 year olds isnât rampant. (This is not to say that your kid is smoking pot at whatever school they attend, just that if they wanted to buy weed it wouldnât be hard to find regardless of the legal status in the state.)
And some schools more actively pursue/search for those using alcohol and/or mj than others.
At CU, the student would be more likely to be charged with smoking in a public building than MJ use.
University of Richmond. Husband, daughter and I strongly disliked it, and left the tour early. College was partly on the list because so highly recommended on CC, so wanted to report back. The bad vibe began with parking the car and the âReserved for a Future Spiderâ sign. (Corny, and admissions and tour person consistently referred to students as âSpiders,â thatâs just annoying). Donât know how to explain the overall aversion to the place because we really wanted to like it. Daughter said it seemed like a fancy prep school, so maybe thatâs it, just gave off a younger-teen-centric vibe, not the serious institution that she is looking for. Also want to mention as it tops a lot of âmost beautiful campusâ lists, though not the most important factor, we found the campus unattractive (monotone and gaudy interiors), though lake was nice. Did like that it is need blind and the $4,000 summer stipend, but definitely not applying.
American University. We liked this campus, felt comfortable and inviting, but left the tour early. Pre-professional vibe too overwhelming. Daughter said she much preferred Northeastern, American off list.
University of Florida - Really surprised as I have many relatives who went to school there and we have been going down to visit them in Gainesville for years. Started off bad with the parking situation. Got to the tour 35 minutes before it started and the parking garage was full. The students/workers there told us we just had to find parking and to drive around. Actually let my son and husband off in the middle of the street so they could make the tour while I continued to look for parking. Found parking and then made it to session only missing first 10 minutes. Once we were on the tour, it seemed like all the tour guide and parents wanted to talk about was the free speech zone at Florida and did they support hate. Knew it was a huge campus, but so much of it has to be reached by bike/moped/car/bus. Shocked at how far away the big fitness center was. Also felt they were a little arrogant with their presentation and didnât really focus on what they would do for your student. Instead, they focused on what your student could do for them. Could have just been a bad day on the tour.
James Madison University. I didnât see or hear anything to make me understand why itâs so popular. The quad area was nice enough but didnât stand out as anything spectacular that you couldnât find at a ton of other schools. The split campus (either side of highway) was annoying, as were the hills which was unexpected.
@rednile As a former resident of a close in suburb of Pittsburgh, let me make it clear: Pennsylvania=Deer. Everywhere. I would come down the driveway in the evening and there we would be a few deer sitting in her our backyardâŠthe mom would get up and glare at me as I pulled in the garage (she was in total protection mode). Another time I was driving in the middle of our downtown (âUptownâ) âŠa four lane streetâŠat 6 AM heading to swimmingâŠand a deer passed me on the leftâŠI guess the 20 MPH speed limit doesnât apply to deer⊠Pennsylvania = Deer. Just sayin". 
Florida State, sadly. Toured recently with D and husband. None of us could put a finger on it, but just couldnât find anything special.
What totally killed it was another family and one of the tour guides kinda trashed University of Florida where we were scheduled to tour the following day. @zline They must have had tour like yours. We, OTOH, loved UF and itâs standing strong as my Dâs favorite. Different people, different day!