The college years are some of the best times of your life. Endless amounts of friends and activities to enjoy as well as actually learning about your career isn’t even the half of it. Whichever college you choose to attend, they obviously vary in size and population. While big D1 schools are massive and full of life, the little schools have their perks.

1. Your professors actually get to know you

In huge colleges, often times you’re just a number. The majority of classes are huge lecture halls that you can choose to attend or to skip. In a smaller school, professors get to know you by name and create relationships with you. You feel as though you can go to them with anything at any time and that they will do the best to help you succeed. If you’re involved in activities, you see many of your professors making appearances to events of yours. You can stop and have a good conversation with them walking through campus because they truly care about your experience in school.

2. The students are basically one big family

After about a year or so at your school, you probably know (or know of) just about everyone on campus. I mean, you all live together and eat together every single day. You meet so many people that you practically know and say hi to everyone you walk by on the way to class. 9 times out of 10, I bet your student population is full of kind and caring individuals.

3. Everyone is there because they love the school

The students at small universities usually choose the option because they didn’t want a big school and truly want to be in a small community. Most students are there for a reason which makes the clubs and activities so diverse and awesome. Believe it or not, most students actually enjoy going to most of their classes and getting an education from such intelligent humans.

4. You make lifelong friends

Not that you don’t make the best of friends at any university, but on a smaller campus you get to be around each other all the time. You’re a minute’s walk away from your best friends to share a tub of ice cream and watch a movie on Netflix. You never get tired of each other and when you’re gone during breaks, you feel like a part of you is missing.

5. Your class size is a perfect number

Your classes are all good sized, with maybe one or two lecture halls with the rest of your classes being small and personal. You get the best relationships with other students that you wouldn’t otherwise make being in a class with two hundred plus students. Group projects and study groups are great ways to make a variety of friends and math tutors.

6. You get to know the people in the community outside of campus

By senior year of college, you really get to know the supporters of your university. Alumni, sports fans, theater supporters, and professors’ families are just a small portion of the outside influence on the college experience. When toddlers to 1960’s graduates are among the most dedicated of your team’s fans, you really feel as though you’ve made an impact somewhere along the way.