Marist College

I'm going to go through a list of general comments that I have found to be very true about the life here at Marist. I'll start with the REALLY important stuff.

*If you are from New Jersey, New York, or Connecticut, you will probably like it here. The majority of students come from the Tri-State area, and although Marist actively seeks to accept a more diverse class every year, the population is relatively homogeneous.

Marist is a HUGE party school. This has been a problem for an academically-oriented student like myself who generally doesn't party. On Friday nights and Tuesday nights, this place is EMPTY. Frequently, the "party" spills over into the dorm rooms and the campus bathrooms at 2 AM, if you catch my drift

The academics are a real positive at Marist. All of my classes are taught by professors, and once you get past the intro level courses, you will meet some absolutely brilliant professors who will challenge you.

The food here is okay. The dining SYSTEM, however, is an evil money making machine. The dining hall serves a fairly wide variety of food here, but they close at 7 on weekends, which forces late-night eaters to spend tons of money at overpriced campus cafes or nearby diners that rake in the cash.

The extracirriculars here are great. Student activites does a fabulous job of scheduling cool stuff, like going to Broadway shows or seeing MLB games. There are many different clubs here, and there is something for everybody. Despite this, however, drinking and partying still dominate the weekend atmosphere, and the majority of students will elect to "go out" instead of attending a club meeting if they have to choose between the two.

The campus is extremely safe. I frequently run around campus at night for exercise, and I have never once felt remotely in danger. If you walk more than three blocks in any direction off campus, however, be sure to bring at least three other people with you. Poughkeepsie is a dangerous place if you don't navigate it correctly and several individuals get jumped or attacked for not adhering to the "buddy system".

Now onto some more trivial stuff:

*This is a liberal arts college, so I'm not expecting everyone to be engineering geniuses, but I am STUNNED at the lack of basic math and science skills that most students possess. In my upper level polysci class, only three students out of twenty-one knew how to graph y=x.

*The campus itself is gorgeous. It is well kept and provides for some wonderful sunset views over the Hudson.

*The library is a great resource. The people who work there are helpful and there are always computers and printers available for when you need them.

*Varisty sports here are interesting. There isn't all that much "school pride", but there are fairly large turnouts at basketball and football games nonetheless. Even so, the teams all suck except for women's basketball.

*Marist gets more selective every year because it's gradually gaining national attention. This has been useful for meeting a wide variety of people, but the college can't keep up. They simply can't take on the amount of students they're admitting, which is resulting in several double-ups in housing. I was lucky enough to have one roommate, but several other students had two or three.

*As far as relationships go, it all depends on what you're looking for. This place is infested with shallow women who routinely get themselves into trouble with shady guys. However, if you look hard enough, you will find some very down-to-earth people who are interested in building lasting relationships.

So after all that, I have to go with the old timer's cleche to sum it all up: Marist is what you make of it. For every good there is a bad, and vice versa. I go through periods of liking it here and then hating it and then somewhere in between. It is probably better than your average school but definitely not in the elite. Again, if you are interested in a "Jersey Shore"-type college, you will probably like it here. If not, then it will take some work to find your place.