Colorado College
Responses from the Student Interview
From a student who identifies as Major: Philosophy
Minors: Spanish and Russian
Student Self Identifies as: Caucasian Heterosexual Male
Summary
I am in Gardening Club.
Background
Gender Identity: Male
Race/Ethnicity: Caucasian
Sexual Orientation: Heterosexual
High School Experience: Private school in Baltimore, MD with about 100 students in the graduating class. There was a culture of going to college.
Major: Philosophy
Minors: Spanish and Russian
Extracurricular Activities: I am in Gardening Club. I ski a lot. The past two blocks I was in a play collective of students. We do 15-minute one act plays.
Academic Experience
Can you describe your weekly coursework for your major?
I took three blocks of Philosophy this year. CC has a bunch of requirements, and in my first block I took Modal Logic to fulfill my quantitative requirement. I wrote one essay, but I mostly had logic problems. The next two blocks were really writing heavy. I’d say for Philosophy you’ll have three or four papers a block, maybe some additional homework, and a lot of reading.
How do you feel the Block System affects your workload?
It’s great for me because since I’m only focusing on one class at a time, I really know when I have to budget my time to do my homework. I know when to set aside my time because there’s only one thing I have to set aside my time for. As far as people assigning work, they condense a semester of work into a three-and-a-half-week block. That’s somewhat true for some classes, but it’s definitely true in foreign language classes. You go through stuff pretty fast, especially when there’s reading involved. They teach the material well and test you well in regards to what they taught you, so I feel like it’s manageable even though it’s pretty quick.
People at CC are really serious about their work, so they set aside time in the day for work. For the last two blocks every day after class I’d go do my reading, and when I’d go to my friends’ houses to hang out there’d always be people doing their homework in there too. Every block there was at least one person who would have so much work they’d have to be doing it continuously. Workload really varies per class, sometimes you take a class and have no work and sometimes you take a class and have a ton.
Is there anything you feel your major’s department does especially well or especially poorly?
They hire incredibly well. It has a really good mix of a bunch of different disciplines of philosophy and there’s a representation of all of them, especially compared to our size.
Reasons to Attend
1) It has great facilities, especially for math and sciences.
2) Awesome professors and great classes. It’s a really great education.
3) Colorado is beautiful.
4) Even if you don’t like to ski and snowboard, there’s so much to do. Colorado’s very diverse in appearance and opportunity.
Reasons Not to Attend
1) If you want to go to a college where you have a lot of control over your housing options and you have a lot of housing options.
2) If you’re only into STEM and that’s it, don’t come because even people who do STEM have minors in the liberal arts.
Around Campus
Where have you lived on campus?
Freshman: Loomis Hall with one roommate.
What is your favorite off-campus restaurant?
I have Celiac Disease, so that’s kind of tough for me. I like TAPAteria, which is a tapas place.
What is your favorite place to get away from campus?
Red Rocks open space, which is a desert-y patch of land near campus. You can go off and climb around. It’s beautiful.
Social Opportunities
What kind of weekend activities or nightlife do you like to participate in?
It really depends on my workload. Wednesdays are the night for going out during the week, there will always be parties then. The first and eighth blocks will have parties [more often during the week]. All the parties are at houses and they will be less than 100 people, so they’re pretty small but that’s what I’m accustomed to. Besides that, it’s hanging out in my room with my friends. It’s really easy for freshmen to get into parties. I was also friends with a senior, so I’d always hang out with him. People at CC are always down to hang with younger people because people from a bunch of different ages take classes together.
There are lists of school approved parties going on through Facebook groups and stuff like that. If you [register a party with the school] and campus safety has to come by, you won’t get in trouble. That has created the drive for the party list to be made.
What have been some of your favorite times at CC?
The orientation trips the freshmen at Colorado College do can be really awesome. I climbed the second highest mountain in Colorado. We also did some trail maintenance on the mountain.
How happy were you with the nightlife? Is there anything you would change if you could?
There wasn’t any consistency to what I would do, and the main reason for that was the class I was in at the time. I’d like to have more consistency with my nightlife schedule.
Campus Culture
How did you meet your closest friends?
I had a group of friends from my dorm that was all men, and then also a group from another dorm that was mostly women, and sometimes those groups would overlap. The group of girls was way more progressive and activist-minded, and the guys were stereotypical dudes, so that was a nice balance too. I think it’s good to get a balance like that because there are people who are fairly different to some extent, but everybody still likes hanging out together at CC because they understand each other in a certain way.
To what extent do you think people of different races and sexual orientations mix socially?
Yes, to an extent. CC is definitely a racially separated school. We had several controversies with race this year because of an anonymous email that was sent to two of our Black deans that was riddled with hate speech. We went through that as a community and that’s still not over. [I realize I’m coming from the point of view of a White person,] but I do think everyone hangs out together to an extent. Residence halls are especially close. But, at the same time, people want to hang out with people from the same identity background.
How would you describe the overall social scene at Colorado College?
People use the same adjectives all the time, they say it’s laid back and people are respectful. People are willing to try a bunch of different things and everyone’s really smart, which for me makes it a lot better. People are really intelligent and able to express themselves and what they care about. They also will budget time to study and focus on work, and there are also people who do that that go out many times a week.
Do you think people are happy with their choice of CC by senior year?
Yes. I only say that because none of my close friends transferred. [In 2017, the first to second year retention rate was 94%.]