From SLU to You! Greetings from a St. Lawrence Senior
St. Lawrence University
Submitted by Lauren Liebhaber on Thu, 09/01/2011 - 18:08.
Hello!
My name is Lauren Liebhaber and I am proud to call myself the newest student blogger for St. Lawrence University. I'm new to this form of social media but from what I gather, this first post best serves as a brief introduction of myself. So without further ado, welcome to my life, musings and postulations as a St.Lawrence University student!
It breaks my heart to tell you that I am now in my final year at St. Lawrence. I won't bore you with a comprehensive list of every fond memory I have of my past three years here, but as the opportunities present themselves in later blogs I will highlight some of the pertinent ones. Though I came to St. Lawrence my freshman year clueless of what I wanted to pursue academically, I quickly found my niche in the English department. I am now an English major with a concentration in writing and hope to pursue a career in international journalism. Fun fact: my dream job would be to write for National Geographic. I've tried my hand at nearly every major academic discipline, some I excelled in like English and Anthropology, while others, as you might expect, just never seemed to stick. The thought of Gen. Bio still gives me chills. But don't get me wrong! It was truly a great class, my brain just isn't wired to undertand the ecophysiology of phytoplankton. To be honest I'm often jealous of those whose minds can!
I am proud to be a member of the admissions staff here at St. Lawrence as an admissions ambassador. In the past two years I have held positions in Residence Life and I have served as a justice on the student Judiciary Board. Some of my hobbies which I have ample opportunities to partake in here at St. Lawrence include cycling, backpacking, kayaking and skiing.
I was awarded a Tanner Fellowship during this past summer between my junior and senior years which allowed me to carry out a writing project of my own choosing and design. My project focused on the history, present and future of primarily third and fourth generation family owned businesses in my hometown. Coming from a family that owns a business which has been around for over 50 years, it was a privilege to have the opportunity to design and pursue a project that quite literally hits so close to home. Home for me, in case you were curious, is beautiful Clinton, New York.
If you have stuck with me until this point then you have my sincerest appreciation! I promise to keep all future posts simple, sweet and enjoyably enlightening. I look forward to sharing my experiences with you throughout the year and please know that I am very grateful for the time you take to read them.
I wish you all well and until next time, cheers!
-Lauren
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son thinking of attending st. law next year
Hi,
Wondering how the small environment works for you and most of the other students...also, my son is sort of a jock, so how are the sports teams, school pride in sports, etc.? Do you feel that you've had A+ teachers? What's the best thing academically speaking from your perspective about St. L.? Is it an "intellectual" campus? Is there much music/arts, etc? Can you walk from campus to town or do you have to take a bus?
You don't have to answer if you don't want to, but hey, there's no harm in asking!
Thanks,
Chris Bergere
Chris,Great questions- I'm
Chris,
Great questions- I'm more than happy to respond. So to start off, the small environment was something that I had no problem adjusting to. I graduated high school with about 150 kids in my class, so acclimating to a school this size was easy. Conversely, I have friends here at SLU who come from extremely large high schools, from places like California or Texas. They graduated with more kids in their senior class than I have in my entire hometown. But even for them, the intimacy of a school like St. Lawrence has made their time here even more significant. You can walk across campus and pass 5-10 people you know very well and say hello to at least a handful more that you may recognize from a class or some extracurricular activity. And it's worth noting that in my almost four years here I haven’t ever noticed any sort of social hierarchy between class years. Whether you’re a first year or a senior, you're a part of a community here and that's what's important.
There is a tremendous amount of pride in our sports teams here, not only from SLU students and staff but from Canton community members as well. I believe this sort of pride develops, in large part, as a result of our relatively small size and the smallness of the surrounding area. St. Lawrence's location has its positives and negatives, just like any other school. But the North Country is as much a part of our identity just as St. Lawrence is a part of the North Country’s. I use hockey as an example all the time because I think it illustrates this point well. For any given home hockey game about half of the seats in Appleton Arena are occupied by community members, the other half by students and staff.
The individual attention that students receive here is what I believe to be one of St. Lawrence's most notable strengths. Professors go to great lengths to ensure that they are available for students. In addition, professors are only teaching around 3 classes on average, so they have a lot of time to devote to individual students, they know their strengths, their weaknesses and they take the time to get to know students on a personal level which serves to reinforce their academic relationships. I do believe that I have had A+ professors. Of course there were some that I got along with better than others but regardless, all of the professors that I've been fortunate enough to have had knew their stuff forwards and backwards, inside and out. Moreover, they made sure I did, too. I would say that St. Lawrence is as intellectual as you want it to be. There are so many opportunities for learning outside of the classroom with guest lecturers, political clubs, student run organizations, etc. They're all available to you but not in a way that's oppressive or in your face by any means. The beauty of SLU is that there really is something for everyone. It's all what you make of it.
I hope this helps! I wish your son the best of luck in his college search, I remember those days well. In four years he'll be wishing he could go back to those days!
Best Regards,
Lauren Liebhaber