Philadelphia University

Date: Jul 28 2010
Major: Art & Design Department (This Major's Salary over time)
I'll be honest, I think my high school senior year self is an idiot for deciding to accept a place at PhilaU. My first choice school was FIT, but I got waitlisted. And not an hour after I got my waitlist letter, who else calls me but a PU admissions guy asking if I would be attending in the fall. Vulnerable, sad, and teary, I told him I would be there in August. I tried to look on the bright side and told myself it was a gorgeous campus (which it is), smaller class sizes would be better, living in a dorm is a good experience, and living in a new city would be fun. Yeah right.

Like many people have said before, making friends is difficult, which is saying something given that it's a slow ~relaxed~ place. And on top of that, being a New York City girl through and through, I just couldn't relate to the 98% suburban people there. I never played sports in high school, I don't drive, I don't rely on the radio as my source of radio, and I wouldn't be caught dead in a North Face jacket, Uggs, and a Vera Bradley bag. And Philadelphia itself is a joke. Getting into the city is timely (unless you have the patience and spare money to get the hourly train), it's tiny by comparison, and things start to close as early as 6pm (6!!). And don't even get me started on the campus social scene itself. I had more fun in the first 10 minutes of visiting a friend at Brown than I had in two months at PU, a red flag that got me to thinking of transferring.

Academics were hardly anything to write home about either. I was expecting to be challenged, but once again, PU was a letdown. A 60 is passing and you need to maintain a 2.5 GPA to keep your scholarship (which all bashing aside, was a pretty healthy amount of aid). Come on, give me something to strive for! My high school English teacher made us to far more challenging work than anything I ever did at this school. And contacting teachers is a nightmare. Blackboard is a really helpful tool when it comes to grades/assignments/e-mailing your teachers, but only 3 out of my 9 teachers used it.

My only real rave about the school is how helpful career services and the study abroad offices are. They'll bend over backwards to help you, which I really appreciated. But not enough to keep me. I'm starting at a school in New York in the fall, and while sure, I'll be living at home, I can honestly say that I will never take the subway or a good slice of pizza for granted ever again.

Overall, if you've grown up in a suburb and are comfortable with that lifestyle, and are very outgoing, I'm sure you'll enjoy PhilaU just fine.