Ithaca College

To be happy at Ithaca, you really need to find your niche. When I first came here, I felt alone and bored, but once I found particular clubs that I enjoyed, I began making friends, and since then, I haven't really been bored. It's also important to find a place to live that meets your desires. If you don't like to walk a lot and you don't like a ton of parties every night, live in the quads. If you don't mind 7-minute walks to every building on campus and you love (almost) nightly parties, live in the terraces. The off-campus apartments and Emerson dorms are rather nice as well if you can pony up the dough.

In terms of education, as an exploratory student, I've gotten a pretty decent look at most of the departments. The arts are very well-funded and not easy to get into from what I understand. If you're good enough and are willing to work hard, you will get out what you put in. Computer science is another great department. All of the professors that I have had for computer science know what they're talking about and are very friendly and helpful. In terms of english and languages and mathematics, it's all pretty much what you'd expect. Nothing too fancy. However, all of the professors are very helpful. They give you their e-mails, phone numbers, sometimes their AIM screen names, and their office hours if you ever need help. On the whole, Ithaca's academics are impressive and pretty high quality.

Now for the not-so-impressive facet of Ithaca... The cost. At first, the rather high expense seems intimidating, but I can assure you that it's much worse than that. Ithaca has a really bad habit of nickel-and-dime-ing you to death. You have to pay for cable and internet access, parking permits cost you an arm and a leg, they hand out parking tickets like candy, and the expense just keeps going and going. Then they have the nerve to ask for donations from their alumni. They seriously need to think things through a little better.In conclusion, Ithaca is a fine institution with something for just about anybody... as long as you are willing to foot the bill.

1st Year Male -- Class 2009

Faculty Accessibility: A-, Innovation: B

IC is a decent school depending on your major and the amount of funds devoted to it. Music, Communications, and Physical Therapy are all well taken care of. Politics, Sociology, Community Health Ed., and Health Sciences are all pretty awful. The psych department is OK.

The students are pretty awful if you're not into getting wasted with a popped collar or an inappropriately dressed for winter girl. If you don't mind surface relationships then come on down.Also, it is cold. Very cold. People come in the fall when it's beautiful and love it then winter comes for the majority of the time here. The last month is OK so people forget how awful the winter was and they come back. Ithaca averages about 3 cloudless days per year. If you stay for the summers it's worth it. I recommend getting a job in town and taking advantage of the great people and activities in and around Ithaca instead of getting stuck in the IC bubble.

5th Year Female -- Class 2005

Faculty Accessibility: B+, Useful Schoolwork: F

I actually never graduated FROM Ithaca College. This should not be surprising as the retention rate there hovers around 65% -- which is laughable. I would say only 30% of the people I met in my freshman year there actually graduated from IC, and that' mostly because they were in specialized programs where, if they bailed now, it'd have been a HUGE waste of time and money because the credits weren't transferrable. Ithaca is a nightmare, and I'm not even talking about the community off-campus (which was actually one's only chance for escape and therefore chance for retention of sanity). Some people have been telling me since I left that the Park School of Communications was still getting its Proverbian S*** together when I was there, which is all fine and good, except that doesn't change the fact that I wasted $65,000 on a year of nothing but learning that a) professors can be some of the most useless, ridiculous, and pretentious people you will ever meet; b) apparently I do have less value as a human because my parents never made six-figure salaries (who knew?); and c) if you're in film school and discover you are using by default cameras that were literally used in WWII... and it's 1996... you might want to consider going elsewhere. The admissions office lied to me about their credentials, the classes were a joke (with the glaring exception of the fiction and poetry classes I had with Mark Blackwell, who was only there for the year I attended and moved on to UC-Davis) and I've never met a more pretentious group of art snobs in my entire life.I transferred to Salisbury State University on the eastern shore of Maryland, paid $58,000 less per year, graduated Magna Cum Laude in 2000 with real experience in everything from film and radio production, print production, writing, editing, event planning, etc. etc. etc. and got an education that was immeasurably better than anything Ithaca could have ever offered me. There's a reason the mascot is the Bombers.

Alumnus Male -- Class 2000