University of Vermont

Responses from the Student Interview

From a student  who identifies as Majors: Double Major in Political Science and Russian
Minor: Economics
Student Self Identifies as: White Straight Female

Summary

I primarily participate in the debate team at UVM, and then I am a member of the Amnesty International Club

Background

Gender Identity: Female
Race/Ethnicity: White
Sexual Orientation: Straight

High School Experience: I was homeschooled. I’m from Hebron, Connecticut. I started taking classes at my regional University when I was 16, so that was more of my high school experience.
First-Generation College Student: No
Majors: Double Major in Political Science and Russian
Minor: Economics

Extracurricular Activities: I primarily participate in the debate team at UVM, and then I am a member of the Amnesty International Club
What impact did your extracurricular activities have on your experience?
I would say I had half of my foot in the door [with Amnesty International Club] because I was so busy with other things. That was a really good experience in terms of introducing me to campus issues within our country and our world, and about human rights abuses and what we can do to address that. It was a good chance for me to meet with like-minded people who are concerned about human rights. We also did really interesting things, like go to New York and lobby and have the chance to meet other amnesty organizers. The impact was really positive in that it educated me and made me a more well-rounded individual and it also taught me how to organize with other people for a collective good. Then the people themselves are really interesting and friendly. I actually joined that club when I was in the doldrums of freshman year feeling like I needed something new. That gave me a way out of that stagnation.
The debate team is far more complex. I was a debater in high school so debate is a really big part of my identity already. The debate team at UVM is very strong, we are able to do a lot of competitions and things like that. I was able to grow as an individual because I was going to a lot of new places and meeting a lot of other really incredible individuals and really intelligent people. It taught me how to deal with conflict in a lot of ways. Like any team, we have issues with interpersonal relations and we had some pretty major coaching staff switch-ups. So, this year in particular, other than just intellectual grown, has been dealing with potentially toxic dynamics and learning how to solve them and overcome them.

Academic Experience

Can you describe your weekly coursework for your majors?
For Political Science, the introductory courses are pretty standard, so one midterm, one paper, one final. I would say the reading load for my introductory classes varied. My very first Political Science theory class was very reading intensive. It definitely is set up to put you on a track so that by junior year you are prepared to write 20-page papers. It’s your typical humanities class in that there is a lot of reading and writing. The good thing about Political Science is that it affords you the chance to get a lot of support because the major is so large. You can study with your classmates, you can find older students to talk to. Also, the professors are very personable. If you find that the workload is too much you can get resources to help with that. I would add that the classes do get more difficult more quickly, it isn’t necessarily the length of paper but the quality of it. I think UVM puts a pretty big emphasis on quality over quantity. Another thing is Political Science is one of the biggest majors, so you have huge classes in the beginning, but then they whittle down. [In 2019, there were 81 Political Science graduates making it tied for the third most popular degree awarded.]
Is there anything you feel your major departments do especially well or poorly?
For especially poorly, I would say there have been a lot of budget cuts to our department, so we’ve lost a lot of faculty and as a result, we’ve had a huge loss in class selection. We don’t have a Western European politics professor, we don’t have a terribly strong Middle Eastern emphasis, so that suffers and you just don’t get the same attention to detail.
One thing that it does really well is that all the professors, except for maybe one [laughs], are incredibly intelligent, very well trained, and, most importantly, have incredible care for their work and their students.
Do you think people are open to multiple schools of thought in the classroom?
It’s difficult to say because we do live in a pretty extreme bubble here, not only at UVM, but in Burlington. There’s a very specific class of people that come to UVM. They’re typically White, middle-class individuals who are very open-minded when it comes to liberal ideas. I would say that we are an incredibly accepting university even though we are not very diverse racially speaking. We certainly are working towards creating an inclusive environment. I would say that that creates an echo chamber. I wouldn’t say that I have experienced too much of this in my Political Science classes, but I have heard in other places on campus a real fear of interacting with ideas that are not hyper-liberal. We’ve had huge protests on campus this year about Black Lives Matter and I think a lot of it was very warranted. But, I also think that some of it was shutting out a lot of important discourse about what it means to have a diverse student body and how we should do that in a productive way other than silencing people who have any critiques of the movement itself. I would say it would be very hard to be an open conservative here in many respects. [About 82% of students are White.]
Why did you choose your majors? Are you happy with your choice?
When I was in high school, [political science] was a lot of what I focused on. It was a natural interest for me. I think being a debater contributed to that as well.
I am happy with my major choice. I love political science as a discipline. It keeps me going when the department itself feels a little bit frustrating. I will say that oftentimes the department is frustrating. It’s hard not to have a huge selection of classes and it’s hard to not really be able to think into the nuanced details of Political Science. When I was coming up with my thesis I was thinking about focusing on Western Europe, but not having resources to connect with somebody about that specifically was difficult. Even now with my current thesis topic, not always having the resources to talk with somebody about cyber warfare and military interventions [was hard because] we’re deficient in those areas. So, my college career at this point in the Political Science department has been focused on playing tag, just trying to pinpoint various individuals and trying to piece together the resources that I need. That’s been frustrating. Other than that, the topic itself is very fulfilling for me.

Reasons to Attend

1) UVM is a good state school. It affords you the opportunity to do a bunch of different things that you may not know that you are interested in at first.
2) It’s a larger school. I wanted to be a little bit anonymous when I came to college, so I did want a slightly larger school but was not interested in a 30,000-person university. UVM was a nice middle ground. [There are about 10,000 undergraduates.]
3) You will make incredible faculty connections. I’m constantly shocked at how qualified and how caring my professors are. It’s not just in my department, but across the board.

Reasons Not to Attend

1) It’s very expensive. You will get much better bang for your buck if you stay at your in-state university. [For the 2019-20 academic year, the total costs for an out-of-state student was $60,468.]
2) You will feel like a number in a lot of ways because of its size. You will have to fight pretty consistently to be recognized by the system and if you have to push back against the system at all, it’s very difficult to do.
3) The student body as a whole can be somewhat exhausting. For me, it’s really hard to be around people who are here only because their parents want them to be here. I think UVM catches a group of people that shouldn’t really be in college, but have to be because of external influencers. There’s a pretty strong body of people here who are just not very academically-oriented.

Around Campus

Where have you lived on campus?
Freshman: I lived in the Wing/Davis/Wilks complex, I was specifically in Davis. I had one roommate.
Sophomore: Mercy Hall with one roommate. I lived on an all-girls floor.
Junior: Off-campus apartment downtown.
What has been your favorite living situation?
Definitely the apartment is my favorite. It’s just really nice to have a kitchen.
Can you describe the level of safety you have experienced on and around campus?
UVM is really diligent about having a good Blue Light System and they have very responsive services. They patrol every night. I personally have not felt unsafe on campus and I’m definitely the person who does not take precautions. I’ll walk home from the library alone at 1:00 AM through the sketchy part of campus. On campus is super safe. Off-campus, Burlington as a whole is not a huge city. You can really easily get off campus, walk downtown, and not be in a really dangerous neighborhood. We also have off-campus buses, so you can leave campus and still get home safely.
What is your favorite off-campus restaurant?
I would say if you can afford to splurge on Leunig’s, that’s always a good place to go. Short of that, we have a place called Dobra Tea. They have a lot of tea options and they have little appetizers and things like that. It’s very calm and quiet.
What is your favorite place to get away from campus?
I love going down to North Beach. It’s a bike ride away and you bike along the waterfront to get there. It overlooks the Adirondack Mountains. If I had a car, I would say Shelburne Farms. It has a huge concert venue and it also overlooks the Adirondacks and that’s really beautiful.

Social Opportunities

What kind of weekend activities or nightlife do you like to participate in?
We are fortunate in that we live in a really interesting town. There are a lot of comedy clubs that are really fun to go to. There are really good bars and good food off-campus. That’s usually what I do. I really like to go downtown to this street called Church Street Marketplace. It’s a pedestrian zone. It’s really fun even if you’re not shopping. They have lights up and we have the waterfront right on Lake Champlain, so we’re able to get outside and the waterfront is really beautiful at night.
Do you go to many parties?
UVM is not a huge party school. It has a bit of a reputation of being one, but honestly, we don’t have consistent huge parties every night or anything like that. I would say I dipped my toe in the water when it came to freshman parties and realized it wasn’t really for me. They were a lot of basement parties that were just not pleasurable [laughs]. I would say my nightlife now is very much just going to friends’ houses and hanging out with the people that I’ve met. I made some great friendships really early on, so I don’t really have to go out as much anymore because it’s really easy just see people at home.
Can you tell me about some of your favorite times at UVM?
Honestly, the hockey games are really fun. We’re a pretty big hockey school and were close to Canada, so it’s a huge part of the culture here.
One of my best ongoing choices at UVM has been getting involved in the Russian department. Specifically, at the end of every year we throw a culture night. The faculty puts together a small celebration for the year and we have Russian food and Russian music and we listen to stories about Russia from everyone who’s returned from being abroad. The students carry on the night and we go back to wherever and it’s a really fun time. It’s a good chance to feel like you’re really connecting with what you’re studying and also meet these really cool people. We do it every year and I think that’s a consistent highlight.

Campus Culture

How did you meet your closest friends?
My closest friend in college now was two dorms down from me, and I think we initially bonded over how terrible our neighbor was because he was living right in between the two of us. She ended up being a really cool person and we kept hanging out. My other really close friend I met in that dorm one night in the common room. We were just talking about the refugee crisis and he was like the first person I met who was able to have a really interesting and complex conversation. Then last year, my roommate who I met through random selection, ended up being another incredible person. It was all circumstantial and luck.
How would you describe the social scene at UVM?
It depends. My social scene is very much told from the Political Science department and people from my dorm. It’s very handcrafted in that way. You have the opportunity to put together a social group that pulls from a lot of different areas, but 90% of the people I know are pretty classic [crunchy people] and they love Birkenstocks. They love going to the [Otis Mountain Get Down] every year. That’s a pretty predominant scene. If you’re the kind of person who can fall into a crowd that is pretty crunchy, but in a very New York way, you’ll fit in [laughs]. If that’s not who you’re are, that’s okay. I don’t think it’s who I am, I can float with that group but it’s not where I feel most comfortable. There are a lot of people who are on the periphery who are not really part of that at all. There are a lot of clubs on campus so you can fall into a niche very easily.
To what extent do you feel people of different races and sexual orientations mix socially?
They don’t mix at all. This is actually something we’ve been talking about a lot. We have something called the Global Gateway Program, which is essentially an exchange program and you’ll see on campus that the exchange students all stay together. They all speak in their native language and they’re all housed in one dorm, so there is not a lot of integration. We also have very few Black students, and the ones who are here are definitely more organized amongst themselves. They don’t integrate too much. UVM is aware of it. I’m not sure if there’s a huge initiative to solve it. [About 2% of students are Black.]

Careers

Have you used the career office or the alumni network to find internships or jobs?
Not really. The best resources for me so far for finding internships and figuring out career paths have actually been my professors.

Financial Aid

Have you used financial aid? If so, how accommodating was the financial aid office to your needs?
I have used financial aid. It has not been the most accommodating. They are generous, but they are very quick to take money away if they think you have made more money. For example, I started off with Work-Study during my freshman year. The second semester they reevaluate your work, and I lost Work-Study because my parents made a little bit more money that quarter. But that didn’t necessarily mean I could afford to lose Work-Study. It’s an expensive school, and I’m on scholarships too, and it’s still very expensive. They certainly are not overly generous with their aid.