Fairfield University Top Questions

Overall, I love attending Fairfield. The best thing about it is definitely the size, and it's strong Jesuit identity. These two things combined allow the university to invest a lot into each student. Faculty members are genuinely interested in students and have a passion for teaching - perhaps as a result of their fat paychecks. Fairfield only hires professors with the highest degrees in their respective fields, which means that you are only getting the best education-wise. One thing I would change: hands down, the cost. I have a substantial amount of merit and need based aid that allows me to come here, but my parents and I are still taking on debt to pay for it. The cost is also probably the biggest controversy on campus. Currently, there is a lot of press over the lack of transparency in the school's spending. I do not go a day without hearing someone say "We pay 50K to go here, and we get blank blank?" Usually refers to our food, the construction on campus, res hall damages, etc. that are common to every campus. When I tell people I go to Fairfield, their first reaction is that it is an excellent school, but people also obviously are surprised that I spend the money to go there. People assume I'm rich. I'm far from it. I would not call Fairfield a college town, per se. Residents sort of resent the university because it is insanely expensive to buy real estate in Fairfield and they feel entitled to an idyllic life that rowdy college kids interrupt. There is a good deal of school pride, but not nearly as much as administration would like. We do not have a football team, and they try to pump up basketball but nevertheless we are NOT a big sports school by any means. You might go to a game to see your friend play, or just for something to do, but it is not a focal point of a weekend like it is at many huge state schools. However, the benefit is that anyone can go to games - there is no lottery for tickets whatsoever. For me personally, the lack of school spirit doesn't bother me because my high school didn't have football and was not a sports school either.

Overall, I love Fairfield University. I enjoy going to classes where the size for each class is small and comfortable. I like the liberal arts that they offer. I've found incredible friends here, and I know that I'll keep in touch with them later in life. There are smaller things that I am annoyed with - like how tiring the food gets after awhile, how the gym is so outdated, how some girls act a little catty at this school, and lastly, how expensive this school can be. However, the positives definitely outweigh the negatives.

Overall I am in love with Fairfield University. I think that making the decision to attend Fairfield was the best thing I could have done with my life. I love Fairfield in more ways than I can describe. First of all I love all my friends and the relationships that I have been able to create. Overall the years I have met a variety of different people and many of these have turned into what I know will be long lasting friendships. I also really enjoy the academics at Fairfield. Here I am able to form strong relationships with professors that truly love what they do. Through this I am able to see what teaching style works best for me and it really makes me feel as though I am truly learning something. I also love the class sizes at Fairfield. I recently had a class with only eight other students and it was a great experience. I think that overall Fairfield is the perfect size. The classes, as I said, are all great sizes for my style of learning. I also believe the size is good because I know or recognize a good amount of people in my year and other years, but it is not to the point where everyone knows everyone else's business. People tend to all say that they have heard good things when I tell them that I go to Fairfield University. At school I tend to spend most of my time in the campus center. Here I am a member of the yearbook staff so I spend a lot of time in the office either working on yearbook things or doing homework. I also spend a solid amount of time in the science buildings better taking classes, going to lab, and spending time with my professors and other students. Fairfield is a cute little college town with a really nice town center where you can find a ton of restaurants and anything that you could really need. I think that the administration is run well and I have not encountered many problems with them. There is definitely a lot of school pride at Fairfield. People are always wearing Fairfield attire and there is always a large outcome at the basketball games. Personally I do not believe that there is anything unusual about Fairfield. One experience that I will always remember is during my freshman year when I did Relay for Life for the first time. I had done relay before this but doing it in a college environment is so different. Everyone was working together for a great cause and I could just tell that this is a place where I could really see myself thriving. Of the complaints at Fairfield I think the most common is that there is only one dining hall. The food at Fairfield is not bad, but there is only one cafeteria so if they don't have what you like then you are kind of out of luck. I got a little bored with it my sophomore year but junior and senior year people have their own kitchen so this was not a huge problem for me. The other problem that I have heard complaints about is living, however, last semester three new dorm buildings were opened so I think this is less of a problem. The last complaint that I hear people talk about is not everyone gets released to live off-campus (on the beach). However I think that this problem is also being worked on because this year everyone who applied to get released got approved. Overall I love Fairfield and I think the complaints are minor ones that are being dealt with my Fairfield administration and staff.

I love it at Fairfield. I went to a small private high school so I love the close knit community of Fairfield. The fact that you know many of the people in your classes is a great thing. There aren't really many student complaints except about the cafeteria, which is not as bad as people make it out to be. I would say that there is a great deal of school pride because the turnout for our basketball games is fairly good.

The most impressive aspect of Fairfield University is the campus. The campus is absolutely beautiful, well kept, and large but with no more than a 10 or 15 minute walk from one place to the other. It's situated in a nice little town, but with not much to do. The academic program here is extremely strong, which is something that appealed to me in coming here. However, there are many areas in which this school can improve. For example, the communication is lacking. It is very difficult to find people's contact information, get in contact with them, and receive a response. I can't even tell you how many times my emails and phone calls went unanswered. In addition, the campus is very boring on the weekends. There isn't much to do, which ultimately led to the school becoming a huge partying/drinking school. For those people such as myself who aren't interested in partying, it kind of sucks. There are ways to make this a little bit easier to deal with, and overall if you're a person going to school in order to get an education rather than just a social life, it's not a bad place to be. If you want a school where you can party every single night of the week, Fairfield's the school for you. If, however, you're somewhere in between these two, you'll find it difficult to find any kind of happy medium here.

Overall, I have found my experience at Fairfield to be excellent. The academic and social aspects of the school are great. The administration does a wonderful job of making sure students always have opportunities to be engaged and involved on campus. The school is just large enough in my opinion. On any given day, I always run into people I know, but also see lots of new people as well. Since I don't live on campus, I spend the majority of my time at my house. When I'm on campus, I spend most of my time in the business school or campus center. I would say Fairfield is evolving into more of a college town, especially since the University just put a new bookstore down town.