Hope College Top Questions

What's the one thing you wish someone had told you about freshman year?

Christine

I wish I had been aware of the disadvantages to learning in a non-diverse envrionemnt . The student body here is extremely white, upper-middle class. Diversity was not a priority in my selection of a school, and I regret not prioritizing that for my educational experience. At Hope College, you have to explore off-campus activities to engage with a diverse crowd. The faculty, however, is extremely diverse and amazing. I have yet to be disappointed with a Hope professor after 3 years. I also wish I had chosen a less expensive schoool.

Taylor

I wish I had known about the encouraging attitude of the community here. In general, the students love to get to know each other and build each other up. If I had known that, I would have been less afraid to get involved in student activities.

Katelyn

I feel as though I was very well educated as to what the expectations were within the college and what I should expect. I do wish that I was able to have more of an understanding of how much the college course studies would take over my life and leave little time for actually socializing but I suppose that is very normal in any college situation.

Holly

I wish I had been offered a class that would help with my transition into college. My professors challenged me and pushed me to do my best, but I struggled with organization and prioritizing my responsibilities. It took a couple of semesters for me to found out how I studied well and the best way to take notes and how to handle to drastic increase in the pace of a college class compared to high school. It would have been helpful to know organizationals skills for college prior to Freshman year.

alexandra

i wish that i would have known more about the greek programs. this school isn't very big with greek and i would have like to have gotten more information on it before i came here rather then when im already here

Russell

Something I wish I had known before coming to Hope would probably just be the layout of the campus, I had never visited or anything before and was pleasantly surprised with how nice the whole campus is.

Brandon

Everything

James

How cold it was during the Winter months. It's not bad once you get used to it and been here for a while.

James

I wish I had been better acquainted with the school in general. I felt like the students from local high schools had kind of a leg up on me at first.

Kristie

How helpful and friendly professors are. I would have made connections with professors a lot earlier in my college career.

Andrea

My major. HA.

Derek

I wish I had known that everyone is not really as friendly as they pretend to be when you visit the school and that the administration pretends to care about you evn though they really do not.

Briana

I wish I would have known that there was a lot of drinking that went on and christianity isn't as big a part as I thought it would be.

Sara

The general Hope population is more conservative than I expected. Make sure you are ready for it.

Sarah

You don't need all the stuff they tell you to bring.

Erin

I wish I would have known more about the dorms and where to lived my freshman year. haha I know sounds lame. I wish I would have known exactly what I wanted to do my freshman year because I switched majors 2nd semester and I am playing catch up in order to graduate on time.

Andi

That it is a lot different than high school It is much more demanding

Justin

I wish I had known that the major choices were not many. I have changed my major so many times already and there is nothing left to do except business. I wish I had looked into that more. Also, I wish I had looked at the lack of financial aid offered to the middle class. I mean honestly its ridiculous.

Sarah

The town closes early and Sunday's very little is open in downtown Holland.

Kaitlynn

I wish I had know how much it snowed up here. Winter seems to last twice as long here on campus and at times it can get a little hairy. Campus safety tries their best to keep the sidewalks and roads clear, but there is only so much you can do when it heavy snow seems to fall 24/7. I usually can't go home during our small break in Feburary because I don't feel comfortable driving. And sometimes the sidewalks are so icy that you can't walk from building to building without falling down.