Loyola University - Chicago
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Loyola University - Chicago - Comments and Student Experiences | |||||||||||||||||||
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Loyola is a community college education that charges an arm and a leg; I left after one semester and transferred to UChicago in Hyde Park. Loyola charged me the full price even though I was there for only one semester. This is nothing but a money hungry college that quickly gets you in debt!
There's absolutely no diversity, not only in race but no diversity of the mind either. Everyone seemed to think the same and only wanted to party, no one wanted to go downtown or explore Chicago's interesting neighborhoods. If you're a minority, unless raised around white people, DO NOT COME TO LOYOLA! They were always surprised at how smart I was for some reason, I found this quiet annoying, and this told me that kids here come from all white upper class communities. They also brought up the usual suburban stereotypes about minorities and expected me to like a certain type of music.
I took 5 classes my first and only semester, out of those five classes I had one professor who was accessible and helpful. There was one professor who wasn't even available on the office hours she wrote on the syllabus. The classes were crowded with 30-40 students and it's easy to get lost in the crowd. It isn't personal at all.
Overall I can say my experience at Loyola was 80% negative and 20% positive. The 20% comes from the good roommates and a very helpful professor who assisted me in transferring. The 80% comes from the one semester of 14k debt, closed-minded students, inaccessible faculty, no good housing system, and a waste of valuable time
First off, I chose Loyola pretty much by throwing a dart at a board. I thought that all colleges were more or less the same (wrong!). Well, I wish I would have looked into schools a bit more. I knew I wanted to go to school in a large city since I'm a huge sports fan, (and the idea of being away from professional sports all semester depressed me)so I applied to Loyola, DePaul, and UIC since Chicago has a nice sports scene. Loyola gave me a healthy amount of money and I'd heard good things about LUC from my Catholic community back home, so per my nature, I signed up for it without visiting.
I was in for a culture shock when I started here. Most of the students are quite nerdy, shy, very introspective, and somewhat unfriendly. For what its worth, I don't think the unfriendliness comes from a true mean-spiritedness so much as from social anxiety and awkwardness. Like I said, there aren't many extroverts at Loyola. If you enjoy large social gatherings, avoid not only Loyola, but avoid any school in any large city. Schools in the middle of nowhere tend to foster better community. Personally, I'm a big fan of community and the everybody-knowing-everybody way of life. You just won't get this in a big city.
What I found even stranger though, it's almost as if Loyola attracted the exact opposite of well-adjusted young adults. Most students here actually hated or completely ignored sports (much to my chagrin) and leaned to the nihilist/relativist/'dark side' view of life. For some reason, people who believe the world is a terrible place come here. Lots of feminists, communists, environmentalists, etc. come here. Why? I do not know. As you can imagine, this made for a bad in-class atmosphere. I'm not for blaming white European males for everything (maybe because I am one) but if you are, your views would be welcome here. And if you're like me, you'll walk around for several years wondering where the hell you went wrong.
But fear not, for all is not lost. I got involved in some student activities I was interested in and made some great friends. I don't know where else anyone would be able to meet friends if it weren't for a fairly sizable network of student organizations.
But my friends and I were bored a lot because there's not much to do nearby. I remember my RA freshman year telling me "It's Chicago. How can you be bored?"- but I was. Face it, if there's not much to do within walking distance, there's not much to do. Most students who stick around on the weekends have to take the shuttle downtown, take the red line to Wrigleyville, or take the purple line to Evanston to have fun. All of this requires planning, which, if you notice, is not a specialty of 18-21 year-old kids. College students generally like to meet up at an apartment, hang out, and then figure out something to do on the spot. This just doesn't happen at Loyola. Most students just wound up going home on the weekends anyway.
ON THE PLUS-SIDE, the administration has taken note of the depressing student atmosphere here and is building a new student union. This is badly needed and I am very happy to see that future students will get to use it. Also, Gentile arena just got a necessary upgrade and it makes Loyola look like a real D1 sports school. Porter Moser, the basketball coach, is a young, charismatic fellow and I'm happy to see him engage students so well. Two new fraternities, a new sorority, and a Catholic student community that is finally fostering a real Catholic atmosphere makes me think that there may be hope for Loyola social life after all.
Overall, Loyola wasn't that bad. I got done in 3 1/2 years to cut down on costs so I avoided that debt trap so many people fall into here. I wish I had a more typical college experience, but oh well.
I met good people at LUC. I have some good memories of this place. I found God here after a few years as an atheist/agnostic. What more can I really ask for? Maybe complaining online is just therapeutic. Maybe you should ignore all the negative aspects of these reviews since you'll have some kind of problem wherever you attend school. Maybe you should come to Loyola because it will change your life the way it changed mine.
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