Why did you pick your college?

herecomesthesun
Thu, 02 Aug 2007 14:52:02 +0000

I am a much more “average” student than pretty much everyone on this thread, so perhaps my experience will be valuable.

I applied to two safeties and one reach-ish match. My safeties were two in state universities that pretty much everyone could get into. The school I really wanted was University of Missouri - Columbia, because of its prestigious journalism program and because it was out of state. I was accepted and offered a good financial aid package so it was a no brainer.

There are pros and cons to any school, and I have definitely had challenges at Mizzou that you wouldn’t encounter at a small liberal-arts college. But the enormity of Mizzou has ended up being a plus. There’s always new people to meet and there are endless opportunities and resources available. I literally feel limitless as far as the university goes. And the bureaucracy isn’t all that hard to nagivate, if you are persistent and polite.

The town is quaint but small and a bit isolated. Sometimes I wish I was in a bigger city, though Mizzou has great exchange / study abroad programs for the J-school, one of which is in NYC.