Boston College

Date: Feb 21 2010
Major: English (This Major's Salary over time)
Lured by the great financial aid package, I attended BC for a year. Within the first week, I knew I had made a mistake.

As a Catholic, I felt that the university (which is Catholic) pushed this down my throat - everywhere you turned it was "feed the poor" or "go on a retreat." I had done years of Catholic school and was not looking for religion in college. They put this above learning.

There is a HUGE degree of censorship - there is no freedom of speech and expression which the administration has admitted to enforcing. The administration has actively cracked down on people who speak out against the university. It influences what can/cannot be learned at BC and it shows as there is a lack of majors/minors. Even certain plays cannot be performed there and extracurricular activities must be cleansed of anything they nefariously deem "bad". There is also a lack of culture on campus, so if you're looking for community and traditions look elsewhere.

As a minority, I was very uncomfortable. Seating and friends and dorms are segregated and there is a great racial divide on campus which causes tension. It is overwhelmingly white, upper-middle class, ignorant kids who are concerned with drinking, partying, and football. Any sort of personal diversity isn't welcome.

Academically, the professors I felt held back because of the limitations imposed on them. They seemed drained and kept to their ivory towers because they had no power or say there. You are bogged down by a laughably large core curriculum you have to fill before you even start your major, a core which lasts well into your junior year - essentially, it's a glorified high school. The administration is completely out of touch with the student body and reality. There were movements to try and fix things at BC within the student body, but realistically, it can't happen because it is ingrained in the constitution of the institution the ways it operates to this day.

The extracurricular activities nobody cares about so they are anemic and of lower grade than high school, and there are no research opportunities.

The most chilling experience I had was finding out how many unhappy students there were - I never sought them out nor did I surround myself with like-minded people, I just talked and what I found out was, deep down, 9/10 people regretted coming and wished they had gone elsewhere.

Overall, they sweep things under the rug and cheat and dupe prospective students into attending. They wasted my time and I was so glad and fortunate to transfer.