There’s no such thing as too much, right? For most people, everything has to be bigger, better, and faster, and the grand scale with which we live demonstrates that size indeed matters. We super-size fast-food–triple-decker cheeseburgers slapped together with the flesh of a thousand cows; we drive monstrous vehicles–built to plow through forests–around the block to fetch milk; and want cable in a million channels.From diamonds to Super Wal-Mart, bigger is better, right?
Maybe not.
Having made the partial transition to main campus, I recently encountered a former RWC classmate who inquired if I was still at RWC.
“Oh, nearly done,” I replied casually. “I take half my classes here, half there. You?”
She wrinkled her nose. “Oh, I am SO done with RWC,” she laughed derisively, rolling her eyes. “I’ve moved on.”
My nouveau classmate is not in the minority. Telling other main campus students I elect to take classes at RWC meets with attitudes both patronizing and sympathetic, as if I just informed them I am still in high school.
Why are commuter colleges stigmatized as disseminating sub-standard education?
RWC offers many of the general education requirement classes I need to take that main campus demands. I can just as easily fail Topics in Math at RWC as I can at main campus and at least pay $100 less a credit hour to do so.
Class size at RWC tends to consist of 25 students or less. In one of my main campus classes this quarter, several students were relegated to sitting on the floor and one poor guy even had to stand through the hour and twenty minute class. Professors routinely throw words of fire-code caution to the wind and once a class is closed, even bribing the professor may prove difficult.
Although I have been fortunate to have really great professors at main campus, I’ve not been able to develop the same rapport with them as I have with their RWC colleagues. At RWC not only do I actually see the administration roaming the same hallways as mortal students, but the Dean actually knows me by name. The only acknowledgement main campus officials have given me are notices that tuition is rising…again.
Finding the offices of some main campus professors is like searching for the minotaur, and due to the larger and multiple classes they teach, office time is restricted or by email. From my RWC English professor’s grandmotherly office, to my history professors’ hurricane wracked abodes, not only do I know where each of my RWC professor’s offices are located, to their detriment, I often visit them several times weekly.
Although RWC students bemoan having to walk an extra 10 steps from the parking lot to the building, at main campus a degree should be offered to those who have mastered parking. Construction workers gobble up the limited free parking before 6 a.m. and garage costs can set you back nearly $10 daily. A sturdy pair of gym shoes should be required in every class as students find themselves sprinting that oh so refreshing mile to their 8 a.m. class.
So, let them scorn commuter colleges if they will. As for me, I find RWC neither too hot nor too cold, but just right.