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Hi everyone!
College. That’s what’s next. After a few more years of high school then off I go. COLLEGE. Some words can be so easy and short to say and spell, but they speak levels of meaning.
What I’m asking you all for is any college suggestions, considerations or universities that have good writing courses. And I’m not just asking those who’ve graduated. I also mean those of you who are in college, or are like me. Trying to find a place to go.
This forum is meant to put in ANY college considerations, ups and downs, concerns, suggestions, necessities, ideas, help…anything!
Thanks everyone!
@aratrea @rolena-hatfield @kate-flournoy @daeus @jess @winter-rose @spradlin @overcomer @hope @ingridrd @corissa-maiden-of-praise @anne-of-lothlorien @Brandon-miller @gretald @graciekry @Hannah-krynicki @write-fury @his-instrument @warrioroftherealm @Christi-eaton
@all of you guys; Tag anyone I’ve missed, please.(And I’m not asking any of you to go and do extensive research, just general info for us who need ideas to research. You give ideas, we do the extensive research. And anything we learn through our college experience [research, college life, after-college-life, etc.] we can post up here for others’ use. Thanks!)
-Dragon Snapper- ✏
☀ ☀ ☀ ENFP ☀ ☀ ☀
@dragon-snapper I have been looking into Patrick Henry College… I think I want to go into law, so maybe Liberty after that. (@aratrea, don’t you attend PHC or something?) I hear they are a good, smaller school. Does anybody know anyone who is a lawyer and maybe has some tips for pre-college? Thanks 🙂 (I’m homeschooled so I can take whatever classes I want.) I would especially like to know about student debt stuff. I would like to graduate relatively debt-free. (It’s about 7 years of schooling.)
Excellent question! As a second-year college kid, I could probably write you a book on things to know before starting college, but there are actually lots of books already out there to help you with the transition. My biggest piece of advice is find somewhere that you feel at home at–or think you will feel at home at, and then go for it–get involved (the most important stuff you learn is never in the classroom) and make new friends. Wherever you go to college, you’ll have hard days, crazy days, days you want to drop out (yikes) and days you feel like you’re on top of the world. Give yourself lots of grace for the journey and all kinds of days. As far as actual colleges go, usually state schools are cheap and have pretty good humanities programs, so there’s always that option. You can also just google your major or Christian colleges and then thumb through their majors. Don’t be afraid to ask questions, reach out to college admissions offices, and to apply if you think it’s a cool place–regardless of where you land on their admission requirements. Most colleges look at a lot of things, so even if you don’t meet the test scores, your extra curriculars could get you accepted. 🙂
Hope that helps! 🙂
"When enemies attack your kingdom you don't flee you show them why it's your kingdom. With your lightsaber."
@dragon-snapper My recommendation would be to figure out what kind of majors you’re looking at and research what the best colleges are for that major. If part of your purpose of attending college is to help your creative writing, I would think through whether or not you want to go to a place with a strong literature program or a strong writing program (or both, preferably). Different authors have different opinions on how helpful college creative writing courses actually are. I personally decided to choose a school with a strong literature program and found that reading great works of literature has been incredibly helpful in developing my own writing. In my opinion, it’s more important to find a school where you can find a good writing critique group than one that just has a writing major. There are a lot of helpful resources online that you can find on different colleges and their strengths, so I would try to choose them based on your intended field of study.
You’ll also want to decide whether or not you’re looking at Christian schools, secular schools, or both. There are pros and cons to either side. The major thing about going to a secular school is you’ll need to find a strong local church as well as a solid Christian community on campus to make sure you’re being influenced by the right people.
@jess Yes; I’m currently a senior at Patrick Henry College, so please feel free to shoot me any questions you have about the college! My experience here has been very positive. The classical liberal arts education that PHC offers is very high quality and the professors invest a lot of personal time in their students. Many professors will regularly sit down to eat with students at the dining hall, and are very accessible outside of classes, which is really awesome. So I would wholeheartedly recommend that you check it out.I’m a literature major, so I’m in a very different sphere than the pre-law program. However, I do know that PHC’s pre-law program is one of the best in the nation. PHC teams regularly win national (and even international) debate championships, and most pre-law students end up getting into their first-choice law schools. If you want to know more about PHC’s pre-law program, or get advice on what to do in high school to prepare for pre-law, I’d be happy to try and put you in touch with one of my pre-law friends as well (one benefit of the school being about 300 people is that I know pretty much everyone on campus xD). And if you have any other questions about the school, I’d definitely be happy to answer them. It’s a pretty cool place, all things considered.
Editor-in-Chief Emeritus. Guiding authors at Story Embers.
@dragon-snapper I really wanted to go to Patrick Henry College a year ago, and it seemed like they have good courses for writers. It looks like an awesome place, especially for homeschoolers. The only thing is, their entrance requirements are very strict, and they put a heavy emphasis on having read the Greek and Roman classics. I couldn’t qualify for it, but you might be closer to their requirements than I was, and you still have a few years to work up to it. @aratrea might know more about that. Anyway, I would definitely 100% recommend PHC. And their mentorship program for high-school writers is amazing, so you might want to check that out, too.
@dragon-snapper There are some websites you can look into that help you find college scholarships. FastWeb is one of them. So is Niche. Granted, they will take your e-mail address and mailing address, and you will get mail from colleges who are interested in you, but it’s not too bad. There’s also Chegg, which I think I am signed up for but I don’t have any experience with. Other than those three sites, I can’t recommend anything– I know there have been scam sites asking you to pay to sign up. Make sure you read reviews on the sites before signing up for them. The ones I mentioned are free, and you can search any college you’re interested in to see their website, reviews from students about every aspect (professors, on-campus life, etc.).
And do college credit plus. Take the ACT or SAT, and then sign up. Last year, homeschoolers got a LOT of credit hours, and it really pays to get some classes out of the way in high school. I may be able to shave a year off of my college graduation time because of college credit plus. They will award you funding based on your high school year, and I believe your ACT/SAT scores have something to do with it but I’m not sure. You can use those hours toward any class you want to take, including online courses, and get dual credit for both college and high school. Furthermore, it’s all free.
@jess I’ve heard excellent things about Liberty U. You might want to look into TeenPact, a week-long government class for Christian students. TeenPact is usually held in your state’s capital. Look it up if you haven’t heard of it. It was a blast, and I’m not even crazy about government. They have other programs, including TeenPact Judicial, which is a week-long class (it might actually be 2 weeks) where they basically treat you like a lawyer. It’s held at Liberty I believe. I haven’t been there, but I know people who have, and they loved it. It is a good way to get your feet wet and figure out if law is really what you want to do.
Malone University has summer camps, if anyone lives near there (it’s in Canton, OH), which give you an opportunity to live on campus for a week and work the professors and program you are interested in.
I think that’s all the tips I have for now. 🙂YA Fantasy Writer
Obsessive Character Namer
Find me at hisinstrumentblog.wordpress.com@sarah-h Good point. They do have rather high entrance requirements. That being said, I do know friends here who didn’t 100% make the entrance requirements but were still allowed in. Because it’s a small school, if you try hard enough to get in, you have a pretty good chance of making it in, even if you don’t necessarily meet all of them. So if you’re close or just have your heart set on coming here, I think it’s certainly worth trying. 🙂
Editor-in-Chief Emeritus. Guiding authors at Story Embers.
*gasp of wonder* They let dragons into college?? Will you major in phone repair? 😀 😀
I don’t think I’ll be much help here, ’cause I’m not planning to go to college.
Buuuut…if this may help at all…the president of Liberty University does not have my respect. You’ll know why if you like to keep up with the news…
I’m serious, he doesn’t. But I don’t know if that’s something which would factor into your decision or not; who knows, the teachers and programs could be really good, unaffected by what their president says. *shrug*- Rank: Eccentric Mentor
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@dragon-snapper I recommend looking up Cedarville University in Ohio. It’s a Christian university, and I think it has over three thousand students. I go there currently (I’m a senior in high school and am taking four classes (Two online and two on campus) with college credit plus or CCP, the program Hannah mentioned).
All my professors have been great, both the online and on campus ones.
The campus is nice, the classes are full of substance, especially the Bible related classes (if you go to Cedarville, a Bible minor is required).
It is an expensive program, though they do give substantial scholarships based on ACT and SAT scores and GPA.Like Hannah said I would recommend doing CCP, and like her I will probably take out a year of college before I graduate high school. So CCP is defiantly something to check out.
@dragon-snapper I’m like you, a few years before graduation, looking into colleges, mostly for writing :). So far I’ve looked at Patrick Henry College, Liberty University, and Cedarville University. I’ve just researched online, so I’m not really an expert, but I think that they all have good writing programs and and other activities or clubs to help hone your writing skills (I haven’t tried any, though, so don’t take my word for it). I think another thing to consider with college is size. Smaller colleges don’t have as many extracurricular activities, but they seem to have better relationships between the students (and teachers) and more learning opportunities. I would advise taking PSATs now to prepare for the SAT; I’m hopefully going to take one this spring.
@aratrea That’s so cool that you go to PHC! I was looking into it, because I love classical education, especially reading and studying the Great Books, but my parents steered me in a different direction, saying that I would have a harder time getting a job if I went to PHC. So I looked at other colleges and the only things that interest me are English, creative writing, and maybe teaching, but I like the curriculum at PHC better (looking specifically at Literature). If you don’t mind my asking, what is the difference between majoring in Literature at PHC and majoring in English/writing with another college, and do you know if would it be easier to find a job with either?Read to explore worlds, write to create them.
@sleepwalkingmk My understanding is that English is more focused on grammar and syntax and some of the more technical aspects of the English language, whereas literature is more focused on reading the great books and discussing/analyzing them. There’s a fair bit of overlap, though, between the two majors, but that’s the directions they tend to lead. And then w/writing, you just have more of a focus on the writing aspects of it.
I’ll let you know if it’s easier to find a job with one or the other once I try my chances post-graduation this May. xD Seriously though, I’m not sure. Majoring in creative writing would probably be the hardest, though. That’s one of the reasons that led me to do literature, as it’s a /bit/ more practical for most jobs. ;P If you want to go into teaching, my guess is that English might be slightly more practical? It partially depends on what kind of school you want to teach at, though. Since I’m wanting to teach in a classical school, literature is likely going to help me more than English. Honestly, I don’t think it would make a huge difference which one you ended up going with. If you’re interested in teaching, the best bet may be to major in literature/English and then do a double major or a minor in education. That’s what I’m personally doing, and at least at the moment, I’m pretty hopeful for my employment chances.
Editor-in-Chief Emeritus. Guiding authors at Story Embers.
Sorry I haven’t gotten back to you @Aratrea. It would be awesome if I could get in touch with a pre-law student form PHC! If not possible, no worries. 🙂 (My email is 143artsygal@gmail.com) I really like the idea of a smaller school 😀
@his-instrument I have been to teen pact and will be returning this year! 🙂 I really want to go to Judicial, but I probably won’t make it this year.
@emma-flournoy, yeah, I don’t care for the president of Liberty too, but we’ll see about college.Oh, college, well, just about to enter it is where I am in life right now. 🙂 I have applied and been accepted to California Baptist University. I would like to go there as it has an amazing English department and drama program, but I am also looking at Providence Christian College. Many haven’t heard of it, it’s quite small, (under 200 students small) but it is a great Christian school, and I have friends who are happy at both schools. Currently, it just depends on some financial issues before I make my choice, but either way, the Lord will lead me where he wants me.
Theater kid. Currently depressed because I can't stop listening to sad musicals.
@jess Absolutely! I’ll talk with some of my friends in the pre-law program and shoot you a connecting email once I find someone. 🙂
Editor-in-Chief Emeritus. Guiding authors at Story Embers.
@dragon-snapper
I’m in the same boat so, thanks for starting this up! I’m looking at different degrees/colleges/all of it, and I know I’m a fair bit away but I’m currently leaning towards Lubbock Christian University in Lubbock, Texas. When I toured there this summer I really loved the campus and everyone was very friendly, especially the writing program people when they found out I was interested in that :D. The classes are generally pretty small, but I have a friend who’s in something to do with animal sciences there and so I’ve heard a good bit about it. The library was BEAUTIFUL, as well… so there’s my thoughts:).
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