OWU: The Big Picture
OWU can be a home away from home. It is situated in a small town with lots of character--antique shops, family-run restuarnts (like Amatto's Pizza and Ollie's Homemade Ice Cream), and lots of Bed and Breakfasts. The city offers off-campus opportunties if OWU's 100+ clubs and organizations and all their activities can't keep a person occupied. The size is perfect because you have close friends, you know a lot of people, recognize more people than you know, but still don't know everyone.
OWU Academic Life
OWU is academically oriented. The classes are rigorous. Majority of students come to OWU with one major in mind and end up graduating with two majors and a minor. Our liberal arts curriculum (having to take classes in a variety of subject areas) allows students to discover what their true passions are.
Professors definately know your name. All classes are capped at forty because professors teach all the classes at forty. My smallest class was eight.
I also find that OWU professors recognize that OWU is just a step on a students path. They want students to do well here, but students don't stop at OWU. They have graduate programs and/or careers waiting for them and classes/professors are geared to helping students find what comes after OWU.
OWU's Student Body
OWU students represent 48 countries and 46 states. We are 10% international, 40% out of state and 50% in-state. For a student body of just around 2000, that is a lot of diversity. We also represent a large portion of multi-cultural students.
Religiously we are diverse as well. OWU has it's own chaplan's office and two story chaple that welcomes all the denominations of campus.
Clothes-wise, some OWU students where pajamas every day and others wear dress pants and heals. Each student has their own style (the occasional prom dress of ugg boots with tights) but there is not one style that defines the OWU student body.
OWU Student Activities + Social Life
For me, social life is renting a movie from our AV center and piling on a couch with friends and eating a pizza we ordered in or catching a show at our drama center. I don't party. I don't go to the fraternities, but we do have parties and we do have fraternities and we do have students that partake in those activities. As far as greek life is concerned, it doesn't rule campus. Only 30% of students participate in greek life and one neat thing about our greek system is, the girls don't live in their soroity houses. They live in the dorms or other housing arrangements. This past year I lived with two of my good friends who also happened to be in a soroity. When you join greek life at OWU you gain a family but you are never separated from the student body.
Off campus, there is the city of Delware, Polaris and Easton (shopping centers) and downtown Columbus. I liked to go to hockey games and a variety of performances in the city.
OWU Naked Truth
I do think it is important to mention some of OWU's housing opportunties. We do have the classic dorm; the double with two people in an open room and a community bathroom. Dorm-wise we also offer quads; four people in a room, two bedrooms, a common room, and a bathroom included with the room (we have the most quads on campus so freshmen will mostly likely end up in one).
OWU also offers a unique housing option called a Small Living Unit or SLUs. SLUs hold ten to fifteen students, sophomore-senior and are themed. The point of the SLUs is to give back to the OWU community in some way. So, each student living in the SLU has to complete a house project based upon their theme.
The themes for the 08-09 school year: The House of Modern Foreign Language, The Women's House, two Creative Arts Houses, The House of the Thought, The House of the Black Culture, The International House, The Tree House, and The House of Inner Faith.
