Okay. So I mentioned the small classes on the "Big Picture" part, but I just wanna reemphasize....average class size=16 at Webster. No classes bigger than 25. I had classes in high school that were bigger!
Probably one of the coolest classes I've taken so far is Poetry with David Clewell, who promptly became Missouri's 2nd Poet Laureate after the class ended for the semester! The class was held in Pearson House, which is the super-old white brick house built in the early 20th century by the guy who invented TUMS (H. Sam Priest, yes, he was from St. Lou...represent!!!) for his daughter. 15 of us crammed into this little room with a big oval table in the middle that used to be the kitchen! The setting was so intimate and engaging! And Clewell's voice is like what I imagine a wise oak tree would sound like if given the gift of speech--calm, soothing, interjected/interrupted at moments because something brilliant has trickled its way down from the mind to the mouth mid-sentence and it completely depicts the concept that he's describing perfectly so my feeble brain can understand it, and with the small portion that's not concentrating it's hardest on every word coming from his mouth, its commanding my hand to scribble notes furiously so as not to lose this quiet moment of revelation and beauty in this old kitchen, crammed with 14 other students and 1 future Poet Laureate of Missouri (though I suppose in a deeper sense he's always been, huh? There just needed to pass some of this illusion we call time before the title would come...)
ANYWAY...yeah, I guess you could say there's some intellectual live on campus LOL...at least for those who seek it. In the classroom, out of the classroom, there's as much as you want or don't want. I tend to seek out those willing to have deeper philosophical, yet simultaneously and perpetually mordant and sarcastic conversations.
Any time I don't spend talking (which is actually probably quite a bit) I'm buried in a book, movie, notebook or guitar...literally...I burrow down deep and do not return until some deep unveiling has beset my mind, or else I get tired or frustrated lol. You see, I'm a firm believe that knowledge is within us all, and simply needs to be elicited from inside by some external factor, whether it be a professor, a book, or a journal/notes...usually some combination. So I take it on myself to learn up on my courses outside of class, a lot of times even outside of the curriculum, because this is MY education darnit! I'm not paying to learn the bare minimum and scrape by, earn a bachelor's of arts and hold a steady desk job in a cubicle for the rest of my life...no, I'm going to change the world!...if that happens to come about from in a cubicle then so be it, the Lord is not without humor or irony I think. lol.
Ah, again I digress. I think my point is that just as in life, your education is what you make of it...it's just really nice when your college or institution makes it super-easy for you to access the resources and tools you need to learn what you need, in order to succeed at whatever you want to do, whether it be changing the world or just playing guitar in your room for the rest of your life (which yes, is a possibility I'm considering.) And Webster does that and more. Our library is stocked with the insanest books that you didn't even know existed. We have 24/7 computer labs/printing stations. We have professors who teach excellent curriculum, but will answer questions outside of class, and are genuinely invested in your success.