The slow roast of springtime is upon us, and that means just one thing: hordes of high schoolers, gawking in wonder as responsible, enthusiastic, and backpedaling tour guides tow them along.
Although these cheery minions of the administration will give a watered down summation of collegiate reality, potential students need to know the cold hard truth about the campus they may or may not choose to attend.
So, as a little late advice to people already here, and to help out those trying to decide, here's a (somewhat liberal-arts oriented) guide to the things I wish I had known when I was selecting a college. Please pass them on to any siblings, children, or friends who are in the college selection process.
Dig like you've never dug before. Do everything you can to bust past their PR crap. Your parents may gobble it up, but it's an unfortunate possibility that your bright-eyed, bushy-tailed tour guide is the most booze-addled know-nothing lapdog ever to pass out in a party house shrubbery.
Investigate the school's history, current events, and administration's reputation. Browse social networking sites. Check faculty profile pages, because sometimes they have non-affiliated personal sites in which they reveal what they're really like.
Examine course offerings in depth. At orientation, they herded undeclared freshmen into a small room and had us pick a few 100-level classes from pieces of paper hanging on the wall. Only later did I discover the full course catalog, and I still grouse about how my first semester was a complete waste of time.
Investigate your classes. Compile a long list of classes, and see if you can find syllabi by checking course sites or by emailing the professor. Search for reviews of the reading material, and decide if it's worth your time. Would this be something you'd want to engage with if you weren't attending college? Ask older students if they know anything about certain departments or teachers.
The bookstore may rip you off. Buy and sell your textbooks from Amazon or online used booksellers. The ASU bookstore has been known to gouge like none have gouged since the Great Gouge-off of Nineteen-Gouge-ty Three.
Parking may rip you off. Bike, pool, fly, teleport! Just don't drive! Everyone knows what a pain this is, so if you have alternative forms of transportation, by all means, use them.
Buying a meal plan may rip you off. If parking is so bad, why not live on campus? Because at ASU, meal plans are mandatory if you live in the dorms. Unless you regularly win pie-eating contests and your friends call you the Fridge, you will not use up all of the meals you purchase. When you're under constant pressure to use up all the food you don't feel like eating, you'll yearn for the time when you can go to the grocery store for some nice, frugal purchases.
Locate and talk with the repressed intellectual underclass. There's going to be someone on campus who will give it to you straight, but it's a trick to find them when they blend in so well with everyone who has something to gain by looking cool. Do not mistake pseudo-intellectuals for intellectuals, nor pseudo-bohemians for bohemians. Find a really badly dressed bookworm, a disgruntled custodian, or maybe a friendly transient, and shoot the breeze for a while. You'll learn a lot about the neighborhood.
With luck, this guide will help you decide on... wait, you know what? Nevermind.
Just do what everyone else does and go to whatever school's the cheapest.
So, to salvage some meaning in my final paragraph: please don't litter when throwing this guide away. Thanks!
Reach the reporter at: matthew.neff@asu.edu.
