Grinnell College Top Questions

I absolutely love this place. Classes are small and often discussion-based, so you get to develop pretty close relationships with professors. This can be annoying when you're tempted to skip your morning class, but you know the professor will email you to ask where you were...but it's also very helpful when you're trying to find a prof to do summer research with, or write a recommendation letter, or just ask about some difficult concepts outside of class. Some pros: small classes, friendly, intelligent classmates and professors, interesting and rigorous academics, huge endowment (you can get funding for everything from clubs and events to stipends on unpaid internships, and the financial aid and scholarships are FANTASTIC). Some cons: small student body (you will know nearly everyone in your year by the time you're a senior), small town (there's movies, bowling, some restaurants--and that's just about it. I'm from Phoenix and I like Grinnell's town just fine, but some people from big cities get bored.)

Grinnell is an amazing place. Not all students fit in here, though: as a Christian I often feel like I should be ashamed of my religion. If you aren't very liberal and non-religious, it will be harder for you to make friends, but not impossible. I love the size of my school, about 1600, but for some it may be painfully small. You will start recognizing a lot of people within a few months. The school is very committed to learning for learning's sake, which means that we don't have course requirements. There are, however, division requirements: all students must take 3 courses each of social studies, sciences, and humanities. It's not difficult to fill those requirements, though, and it's just meant to give all students the broadest education possible. Overall, I really do think Grinnell is a great school, and there are very few complaints against it from any of the students.

Best thing is the academic environment. Everyone likes academics and its a big part. Something I and most intellectual people like. However, the process of being a student at the college is terrible for reasons I will outline.

Grinnell is a great place to be if you're the kind of person who enjoys bucking the mainstream; maybe you're really smart but you don't like the pretense of the Ivies, or you want a place where you can show up to class barefoot wearing pajamas and not have anyone bat an eye. Grinnellians take pride in shocking outsiders with their quirkiness, and the faculty and administration really work hard to facilitate an environment where a student can be him- or herself.

Grinnell is a place where students can really take the initiative to participate in larger global issues and do undergrad research. The administration what I dislike the most. Students here feel a bit of a disconnect between the goals of the admin and the goals of the student body. I think it's just right for me. Some say it's too small, but I disagree. People either have never heard of the place or say "oooh, Grinnell! That's a very well respected school where all the students are really smart" or something to that extent.

Grinnell is a small school in a small town. you have to really charge yourself though to interact and understand the community of the town. Grinnell College is not made by the town it is in, but I think interactions with the town is key to surviving. All the events on campus including sports games, theatre performances, and gallery showings are free to the campus and community, therefore it is easy to get swallowed by activities on campus. I think it is very important to also interact and venture into the local community's parks, coffee shop, and restaurants. It makes a big difference when you can remember Grinnell is bigger than the campus and McNally's (where you buy your groceries). It's even nice to be surprised when Hyvee gives you a 5{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} discount on food for being a College student.

The best thing about Grinnell is that the school takes what other schools offer, and multiplies it or gives it a special twist that makes it more exciting. Even though the school is small, I meet new people all the time. It’s definitely hard going to a school with little name recognition in the populous (I find graduate schools and top businesses have actually heard of Grinnell) but the name recognition is something I give up because this experience is really for me, for no one but me, and I know how great it is here, so that’s what counts. Grinnell is also known for its “self-governance” policies, nicknamed “self-gov” which basically insinuates that because students are adults, they should act responsibly and kindly toward others. If you see someone struggling, help them, because next time they will help you. It really works to build campus community. People say that the school is getting stricter, which is causing controversy, but it still remains incredibly lenient, especially compared to other institutions. Grinnellians have a lot of school pride, but it does not manifest itself in homecoming parades or school rallies, it’s more a love for each other and a voracious appetite for learning.

Grinnell is a relatively small school. Ok, maybe no relatively about it. In my first year, I felt like I knew most everyone. Familiar faces become very familiar. But I like it that way. I don't have to get lost in a sea of faces or try to remember billions of names. The campus is beautiful, and impossible to get lost in once you've been there more than three days. The town is quite small, but it has a Wal-mart and small food stores, some awesome consignment shops, and pretty much everything within walking distance, which is great if you're not lucky enough to have a car or know someone with one. Decent restaurants are in Grinnell the town as well.

The biggest problem that I have with Grinnell is the location; being in the middle of Iowa isn't the ideal location for most people but Grinnell is expanding and the school provides opportunities to go to Des Moines and Iowa City for free every weekend. Also, most people not from the Midwest haven't heard of Grinnell because it is so small, but graduate schools and employers all seem to know about Grinnell. I've heard that Law Schools really like Grinnell students because Grinnell students know how to have class discussions and write better then even students who attended "more prestigious" schools.

One of the greatest Grinnell experiences ever was the impromptu dance party outside of my dorm. One spring Friday night, a few weeks before the end of semester, Honor G decided to play a concert on the roof of the south campus loggia. The loggias are roofed (and in the case of south campus, enclosed) walkways that connect the dorms. The roofs are accessed by climbing out of second story windows and have been popular party spots for years. Honor G is a student formed band that dabbles mainly in rap/electronic. Due to inclement weather, the concert was held inside the loggia with amps and speakers hanging from the windows of the first floor lounge of my dorm. Grinnell's progressive drug and alcohol policies allowed us to bring our refreshments of choice to the concert as well. The stage was set and Grinnell was ready. Quite a crowd had gathered by about nine-thirty and it only continued to grow bigger. The occaisional cigarette was lit and several groups weaved through the crowd attempting to pass, only to fail and join the mass of people in the loggia. Eventually bodies started spilling outside though the doors and windows, and of course, it was still raining. In order to make the best of bad weather, we clambered atop the picnic tables and began dancing. By "we" I mean about twenty people. Even the most shy removed their shirts and joined the wet and wild insanity. What could be better than a wild dance party fueled by dance techno punctuated by live performances? Mud wrestling. I'm not sure how it started, but two people threw down and got dirty. After they finished, another pair kept the action alive. After a bit, turns were ignored. Bodies and mud mixed together while bystanders continued to dance in the falling rain. At this point, the majority of concert-goers had had a decently mud splattered, whether by choice or not. Someone had the bright idea to use my dorm's showers for a quick rinse. Not until the party wound down and the crowd dispersed did we truly see the disaster at hand. Every imaginable surface of my dorm was brown. Walls, floors, stairwells, bathrooms, and showers all wore their mud like a badge of honor, as if they themselves had been outside. Our dorm picnic happened the next day. A nice 11:30 o'clock wake-up call followed by grilled burgers and hotdogs (there are several grills outside the dorms) helped everyone recover their senses and memories of the night before. As a dorm community, we decided to collectively participate in the cleaning process, and even roped in a few people from neighboring dorms who had attended. It was as if Barney had appeared to a bunch of hung-over dance-crazed four year olds and had begun singing clean up, everybody, everywhere. Working together, we had the work done within two hours. An old saying at many colleges that truly applies to Grinnell goes: We work hard, We party hard. I love Grinnell.