College Cultures

In December I took a trip to visit my friend at Elmira College. It is a small liberal arts college in Elmira, New York that enrolls about 1,500. Coming from this college of over 5,000 it was a much different experience. When I was on my way to the campus I entered the area of Elmira and almost passed it. There is no major waterways, bridges or city area. The college is in the middle and is basically only one square block. I am not saying this is the biggest campus in the world but it is larger than theirs by at least half a mile. Their dorms are also much different. They use metal key to enter the building instead of our modern swipes. While we have security guards at our doors and ever present security cars patrolling they have almost no security to be seen. At Marist we have a segregated of freshman and sophomores on this side of route nine and the upperclassmen on the other side. At Elmira everyone is intermixed and EVERYONE knows each other. The gossip scene is apparent and everything you do is know by others within hours (at least here at Marist it will take a few days!).
Later in the night we decided to go out. Here it would involve hours of getting ready going from room to room, sharing clothes, beauty techniques and wearing dresses. At Elmira it was so casual. Just put on an outfit I would wear out to dinner or the mall. At this school we would hang out in our room then go to an off campus house for an hour or two and then bar hop the rest of the night. Elmira involved going from one dorm to another one that house freshman all the way to seniors. When we went out you could tell the scene was much smaller and as were the amount of people out.
There were many things that shocked me when I went to visit Elmira. In my mind I pictured all college cultures to be similar in some regards but this one was not. From the size to the people to the dorms everything was different. This was on of the first times I actually analyzed how different just going an hour and a half from your house to another college could be. What can I say though? She love Elmira, I love Marist and we are getting an education equal to each other!