jkmcgurk

The Main Difference Between Big Schools and Small Schools

I came to the University of Pittsburgh in the fall of 2002 when I entered immediately after my senior year of high school. I had gone to small, private schools my whole life until then, but as a young, opinionated, and slightly rebellious youth, I decided to attend a large public university and not a smaller, semi-private one like I would've been used to. Despite the many friends I made within my own departments, as a whole, my experience at the University of Pittsburgh proved to be exactly what I had been warned about - my existence among the thousands of undergraduates led me to feel very depressed and alone; I was in fact, a number and not a person. Desperately trying to seek companionship and belonging, I rushed many clubs and students organizations with the hope of finding a niche, but in the end, my attempts at fitting in only proved to be detrimental to my academic success.

At one point I decided to study abroad, and I did so, in a smaller program, and as fate would have it, I had the time of my life AND did extremely well in my classes. Perhaps it's a comment on the states of education here and abroad, but I find the biggest difference between Universities in America and those abroad is that students abroad are not rated on a 0 - 4 point scale. Classes are individualized, mostly meeting once or twice a week, and teachers encourage more independent study that group assignments and due dates. It's structured on the notion that each student learns at an individualized pace, and more information can be retained by hands-on research and projects, not by syllabi loaded with requirements for everybody to complete weekly. An A in England is seen as extremely gifted, whilst a C is where you are expected to be at any given moment. The idea is nobody is perfect, and that's why they're in school - to push themselves to become stronger in any given subject.

Upon my reentry to the United States, and thus, the University of Pittsburgh, I was incredibly disenchanted in the educational system in the U.S. particularly in regards to large universities that treat their student bodies like statistical demographics. Teachers of large student bodies are all concerned about one thing - their own classes, and they do not care that a student is taking four other classes under teachers that all feel as selfishly about the subjects they are teaching respectively. The same can be said about the advising staff in large American universities; in an attempt to accommodate as many students as possible, more often than not they overlook the students that need the most help to cater themselves and their instruction to students that practically already know where they are going.

Overall, the University of Pittsburgh has been a typical life challenge. I'm not saying that I wouldn't recommend it - I cannot trade the experiences I've had with teachers and other students. It was a life-learning experience and I am grateful; however, if I could go back in time and do it again, I'd probably choose to attend a smaller university.