Grinnell: The Big Picture
What really sets Grinnell apart to me is the sense of community. The first thing that comes to mind is the professors, and their relationship to students. All my profs and me are on first name basis, and they are great mentor and friends. I have friends here who are so close to their professors, they would even count the profs as their family.
The college being so small also have impact on student-student social dynamic. You will end up knowing half the people here, and it is great that you will see friendly faces everywhere. However, you also can never avoid your ex.
The town is also great--people are very friendly, and it's very safe. A bit on the boring side some time, but normally not too bad.
Grinnell Academic Life
I'm on first name basis with all my profs. I talk to many of them outside of class all the time. We pull pranks on them, and they do the same to us some times. If you are into forming a close tie with your professors, Grinnell is the best place to be.
As a science major, we have a lot of really cool toys to play with. Although we do not have the most high-tech toys that big universities might have, we are given 100% access to pretty much everything around here. That means I get to work on a multi-hundred-thousand dollars Xray Spectroscopy machine, the giant telescope out in the observatory, etc.
The downside--homework is a real bitch. For every credit of class (16 credit is the normal load), expect to spend 3 hours outside for homework, officially. In reality, expect to up to 6 hours on homework per credit of class taken, and a few more for studying, and then some more to meet with the prof. On a project weeks, sleep is a rare occasion.
Grinnell's Student Body
The campus is hyper-sensitive to a lot of issue. Students react very strongly to any kind of discrimination and almost feel a bit like bigot. They stick well together as a community, but it gets annoying and feel very restrictive some time if you happen to lie outside of the norm. I still remember wearing a hammer&sickle t-shirt one day, then finding an entire article in the school's paper repremanding me...
The democrats are extremely vocal and pretends like they're the only people on campus--but they're not. There are a lot of Republicans. And a good deal of people actually lean more toward socialism too.
Grinnell Student Activities + Social Life
If you like to get drunk, then we provide! If you don't like to drink your days and nights away, we do have other activities.
The cool thing about Grinnell is how easy it is to start a club, and procure funding. Find a friend, and you have a club. 2 semesters ago, we formed a kite club with 3 people, ended up with $800 funding by filling out a page of forms. That's how easy it is.
The ease of finding funds also allow a lot of clubs to bring high profile speakers over all the time, as well as concerts and stuff.
