So currently, I am a freshman at Austin College in Sherman, Texas. When I was applying for colleges, I didn't really have any college in mind. I wanted to apply and attend to this university in Tennessee just because they were the first college advertisements I received. I heard about Austin College through my mom, who heard about it from her coworker. The main reason my mom wanted me to go to Austin College was because of the large amount of scholarship money they provided and the small student to teacher ratio. At first I was skeptical of applying, but I attended a few preview days and fell in love with the school. It's usually a hard thing for me to fully accept something as my passion but Austin College became just that. Even though I'm just a freshman, every single time my high school friends ask me about college and if they should look at it, I tell them the spiel. There are some things that I haven't forgotten about Austin College before attending here and even more after attending here.
During the preview days, everyone was super nice. Now, you might say, "But they have to be nice! They are trying to sell you the school." This is not a true statement. I toured a large public school and the atmosphere was completely different. I felt like I was just an insignificant prospective student in the large crowd. Austin College is a small community and so when you toured the school, they weren't faking their sincerity and friendliness. I attended a panel and one memorable statement I heard from the current and former students was this: "Don't come here if it doesn't fit you." Never have I ever thought to hear anyone say that about their own college. Usually the typical response "this school is amazing, come here!" No one would ever say don't come here before you even apply there. I was so used to of people giving me a duty to do or something simple to just follow orders. But a few students said don't come here if it doesn't fit you. Another event they talked about how everyone will have a college/university that fits them. Austin College really wanted people to feel at ease here as well as learn in a environment that they want to learn in. So I applied and was the first in my class to commit to Austin College.
Another thing that I happen to love about Austin College is the learning environment and the professors. Premed route isn't at all easy but with the same student to teacher ratio, it's really nice for an isolated introvert like me to speak up or talk to the professors. If I were in an auditorium with 300 other students, I wouldn't feel comfortable at all to speak up. I haven't reached the point where I feel comfortable calling or texting my professor at 3 am in the morning but hey, I'm only a month into school.
As with every college, it's the peers around you that make you feel especially at home. The first week I arrived here, to be honest, I cried because I felt lonely and didn't want to repeat high school all over again where I would stay in my room all the time just because I didn't have anyone/anywhere to go hang out. I finally found my friend group and since then it's been all uphill. Even the people who aren't in my friend group (we all have those people) have been super nice. It's not a repeat of high school and people in general don't care if you're weird. We're all here for different things but the main goal is to graduate and find ourselves.
Lastly, for me, liberal arts is an amazing structure for my own learning style. It's nice to have a breadth of classes in between the number of science courses I'm taking. Not only that, but for me, I'm the type of person that basically wants to major in everything because I just love learning so much. I love the open mindedness everyone has.
You should definately give liberal arts a try.
