Johnson C Smith University

My experience at JCSU was a bitter sweet nightmare. While being at the school helped me network, make connections and perform at different opportunities I feel as though the staff did not fully support and have the students back. I am passionate about both music and being a fashion designer. However, because JCSU doesn’t have a fashion major I decided to major in music business. The music department could not get organized. None of the professors were on the same page and in fact a lot to the students that I started out with during freshman year who also majored in music ended up changing their major to IDS or communications because the music department was so unorganized. The cafeteria was one of the worst things on campus. It closes at 7pm which made it hard during the night time for students to eat if they had to go to work or had nighttime classes from 5-7 pm. Every time I ate in the café their meat would never be fully cooked. There were times where my friends and I ended up sick, throwing up or even develop bumps around our mouths because the dishes were cleaned poorly. The living conditions at JCSU only has about two-three dorms that are safe to live in. The others are filled with mold. There’s this one dorm on campus that has such a high content of mold that when you walk into a person’s room you are instantly hit with mug temperature. You feel cold and sweaty at the same time because the air is so moist. One of the worst things about this school is the disrespect that a lot of students endure from professors and the faculty. I have been in choir for the past two years at JCSU and the choir director must be one of the rudest teachers I have ever met in my life. There are voice recordings from students who have recorded the director saying rude and nasty things to the students. Students have even taken those recordings to the president of the school but because she is good at her job he doesn’t say anything but defend her. She attacks our weight, if we don’t pick up on the music as fast as she would like she yells at us about how we need to get off the slow bus and hop on the fast one, or say that we must have skipped taking our meds today. Now I know what you’re thinking. If choir is so bad then why go back? Why do students keep going back to the class? Well, for two reasons. I love to sing, I love music. That is what I want to do with my life so I refuse to allow someone to take that passion away from me. The second reason is because the director gives us scholarships which almost every student needs. So, we feel trapped almost. There are times that the choir director gets upset at us and talks about students who aren’t in the room. She is quick to throw their financial situation out there when another student financial situation is none of my business. She throws the fact that she has given us scholarship money in our face to get us to follow her directions that are even in the syllabus. The last thing that she said to us on the last day of class was that when she’s sees us again in the fall semester we all need to be 20 pounds lighter. Luckily for me I will not be returning to her in the fall. Because of my overall experience I have decided to transfer to Howard University during the fall. I applied to Howard my senior year in high school and I was rejected but I applied again last semester, my sophomore year, at JCSU and I was accepted. This is why I need this scholarship. Not only am I finally going to be able to go to my dream school but I feel as though it is going to be a completely different experience then JCSU. I am really looking forward to this new chapter in my life where I will be able to major in both music and fashion.

I love my HBCU. It a family friendly environment where we know everybody. Where we know what going on. You can always get help with your home work and as question. People are here to help you not fail you. You are a face with a name not a face with a number to it. Your teacher get to know you as a person. I love my JCSU.

Overall I really love JCSU because it feels like a second home. I enjoy going to the classes because the teachers are focused on your best interest. I am actually trying to get more involved in campus activities for possibly a better experience since it is only my sophomore year. I am excited for whats to come!

My overall opinion of Johnson C. Smith is just like any other college campus. It is what you make it. Granted I never wanted to attend a HBCU, but I blocked out the fact that it is an HBCU with the goal of me finishing what I started in obtaining my degree.