Alex

Bucknell life is termed "the bubble" for good reason, because most activity is usually contained on campus. Rarely do we venture out into neighboring areas of PA. There is a "downtown" portion of campus (not technically campus), where students live in single townhouses and it is here where many weekend drunk festivities are held. Also downtown is market street, which is a quaint road that has many cute shops and restaurants, including CVS and Bull Run, our school's favorite nearby pub. There is also a wallmart less than 3 min from campus, as well as a Wendy's McDs, Pizza Hut, Subway, and the FREEZE! (that was said with the enthusiasm that every Bucknell would show for their beloved ice cream hut! Nearly everyone has been to the freeze and claims it serves a Lot of great ice cream at a low price). Selingsgrove, a neighboring town is 20 min down the state road and has a target, best buy, bed bath and beyond and a mall. So even though Bucknell is in a rural area, you will always have a place to find things that you need.

I’d be lying if I said this wasn’t the thing I like most about Bucknell (besides from my awesome group of friends! Love you guys). School here means getting to know both your classmates and teachers. The school isn’t that large, about 3500, so you will start to realize who is in your major pretty quickly, which makes it easier to find people you can study with. The teachers here are always more than willing to help you with any problems or questions you have. It always shocks me how much the teachers want to help you. I’ve never been one to ask for help, and I always assumed that if I did, I would seem stupid to my professor, but after getting over that fear (this will be necessary for most of you) I realized that everyone of my teachers were caring, understanding and very helpful. And you have every opportunity to get help if you need it. For example, we have Calculus tutor hours from 7-9 every night of the week, where you can go to ask for help on HW from experienced math majors. Great deal, huh? Plus, what better way to learn than to get involved in research. I can’t believe how easy it was for me to get involved in research with one of my professors. I literally looked through different teachers’ research and found a project that really interested me and I emailed the teacher, explaining what my interests were, and how I thought her/his research would help me develop those interests. And to think, my heart was never really into school before college, but now I have this unquenchable thirst for learnin’ (yah, I’m not quite there yet!). Basically, I can’t explain to you how much I enjoy classes here.

Diversity? We could start at the different ethnic and racial populations on campus, but how about we start with clothes. It isn’t hard to notice, when you surrounded by your polo wearing, tote purse doting peers, that there is one general type of people here, and I don’t like to stereotype.. but prep says it all. So if this is your style, you will be right at home here. The African American, Latino and foreign student populations, although seemed small my freshman year, have increased significantly my sophomore year. As may be expected, it is slightly less than welcoming for a black person to come to rural Lewisburg, Pa. I didn’t fully understand the extent of it, until a friend of mine told me my freshman year that she didn’t like to go into town by herself, because she would get unnerving looks from shopkeepers for what she thought were because she was black. Although this could be an unusual occurrence, I have heard similar unnerving stories from one of my professors and I thought I should report my findings. That said, I don’t want to deter any prospective students from applying, keep reading for reasons why Bucknell will feel like home for you. Also, what you may want to know is that the African American community has exploded since my freshman year (last year) and so has the Latino and foreign student populations, so we are finally starting to feel like a normal campus. (**As I am mentioning all of this and I hope I haven’t offended anyone, I hope that my words are doing something to break down the “white middle class” stereotype of bucknell, because it truly appears to be changing). As for the LGBT community, I had so much to say, so I waited til later to write a short paragraph about it: read on.

So greek life at Bucknell is important to talk about, because it has such a big presence on campus, and it goes hand in hand with parties. Because we are in Lewisburg, PA, we obviously look to campus to keep ourselves interested on the weekends. Frat parties hold a monopoly on Bucknell’s social scene. But greek life isn’t about parties, it is about having a non-related and large “family” that you can call your own while you’re at Bucknell. This provides enormous comfort and stability for a lot of young Bucknellian men and women. Going through rush is not only a good idea for the sake of getting into a sorority, but just for the sake of meeting more of your classmates. Bucknell is great because no matter who you are, you will find a sorority that you can mix well with if you choose to do so. If you do decide that Bucknell is something you interested in, you should seriously consider taking advantage of this great social support group while you’re here. As for those gay and lesbian, and or LGBT individuals out there wondering what it will be like for you specifically if you should decide to come to Bucknell, I will let you know what it was like for me freshman year. As I was in my coming out stages, I was eager to meet “All” the gay people, and join the lgbt group, and fight for gay rights, and take the lesbian populous by storm, I quickly discovered that college in rural Pennsylvania meant that there weren’t a lot of gay people, or maybe there just aren’t a lot of out people. So, as was my objective of this review, to tell the truth, I feel that I should let you know that there aren’t a ton of gay/out people here. However, unlike many other places I’d guess, Bucknell is extremely welcoming towards lgbt students, in terms of the student body, the professors and many of the student run organizations on campus, including a Christian support group (most involved w/flag surprisingly). SO if you’re a gay Christian, you will have a home here. But one of the first places you should visit when you come to campus is the LGBT office. It is one of the nicest offices on campus. it’s comfortably and cozy, and has the nicest people who work there. As a gay student, I would encourage you to go an introduce yourself to Fran and Laura, you won’t regret it! They work hard all year-round to get gay comedians, speakers and panels to come to campus and enrich the student body with all things gay!

The common stereotype for Bucknell students is that they're all geeky white middle plass preps who like to drink... a LOT. Bucknell is also known as the school of Beautiful People.

It is very typical for students to be white, middle class, and preppy. As far as I can tell. So if your into that, this could definitely be a good fit for you. As for the beautiful people, I found that this is very true. Everyone here is strikingly beautiful, and almost nobody is of the obese/acne ridden variety. It made me wonder how I got in, which then lead me to realize that there are a LOT of athletes at Bucknell, an important characteristic of Bucknell. I was an athlete, a former water polo player , and I’m pretty sure this helped me get in more than my mediocre high school gpa, or my average or less than good looks.

Ok, so maybe Bucknell has some kinks in it, but If there’s one thing to Love about Bucknell, it’s the veracity of the student body’s willingness to enjoy themselves a good PARTY. Second to the “white middle class” stereotype, it is the most well known thing about Bucknell. Students here know how to work hard and play hard. This is an exceedingly good quality in a college, considering you want to have the best possible college years in terms of fun and excitement, but you also want to become distinguished scholars in your respective fields (aka graduate with a good degree)- and at Bucknell, you can do both! It is also the single most unifying quality at Bucknell. No matter what issues the student body may have, a good party seems to bring the community together better than anything. A prime example of this is what we call “house party weekend”. On this amazing weekend, and for one weekend only, everyone on campus is allowed to drink without repercussions.. ANYONE! And everyone can get into any frat they want to. There are live bands, and free food, beer, beer, oh and there is beer. Basically, everyone is everyone’s best friend on this booze fest weekend. Other things to realize incoming freshmen, girls- you will get in basically anywhere you want (frats), and guys will get in nowhere. This is only freshman year though guys. So you just have to stick it out for one year when you can rush (which I will talk about next). Before that though, I know the guys on my freshman hall seemed to get by with weekly drunken bashes in their room.