Two important things you should know about Samford right off the bat: first, unlike many other colleges in Alabama, and many other colleges in the south in general, Samford is located in a great city - Birmingham. With over a million people in the metropolitan area, there is a lot to do - whether it's going to a play, traveling to the art museum, going to see a football game, cheapening out at the dollar movie theater, etc.
Second, Samford is a very beautiful campus. All the buildings were built in the Georgian Colonial architecture style, and they're all surrounded by a very nice quad area. Furthermore, Birmingham is a beautiful city filled with huge hills, meaning that Samford is very nice to look at.
These are things you may have already known about Samford, especially if you have visited the college before. However, there are other things you should know if you're looking at going to Samford.
For instance, as I'll probably say a couple other times in this review, Samford is a college on the move. In a recent Forbes Magazine study, Samford was ranked the 27th university in the nation - with Harvard being number one, and UC-Berkeley being number twenty six. Though Samford isn't a household name, it's starting to be recognized nationally for its expanding, productive academic programs.
Also, Samford is a college that's growing. Just recently Samford announced plans for an expanded University center, and there is literally always some construction that's going on around campus. This does mean, unfortunately, that the tuition is continuing to go up each month. But it means that Samford is becoming a better and better place to be.
The Samford administration is also amazing. The university's President, Andrew Westmoreland, actually teaches an American Politics class on campus which is highly recommended. In fact, many people in the administration teach at Samford, they're not afraid to interact with students, and most students seem to genuinely like them.
With that said, not everything is perfect, as I'll talk about throughout the review. Samford isn't a diverse place, at all. School spirit is a bit lacking, with very low attendance at athletic events.
And there always inevitable complaints about Campus Safety. Its latest stunt, caused by a now-fired employee, was to text message everyone at the university at 5:30 AM in the morning to tell them an armed person was on campus. A few hours later, we learned that it was all a hoax, made up by a Campus Safety officer who was tired of riding a golf cart around campus. It also failed to catch a "creeper" on campus for several weeks, until a group of students finally tackled him after seeing him outside a student dorm room. But there are worse things you could complain about, I guess.