The Campus and My Room

I know that Skidmore should not be compared to UNC, but to help others put the campus and whatnot into perspective, here is a brief comparison of the two schools.

Skidmore is a small college with about 2500 students. This in comparison to UNC with 12000 students. This being said, I have seen more of the same people already than I have ever seen at UNC. But that is neither better nor worse, its just different.

The Skidmore campus is very pretty and has much more foliage than UNC. I have not looked into the exact acreage of the campuses, but by just walking around, I think this campus is perhaps the same size as West Campus, including the dorms, recreation center, and the hill with the UC. It is also interesting that four of the main academic halls are joined together into one enormous conglomerate building. This means that in the winter time when it gets cold, I will not have to go outside in between most of my classes. There are also covered walkways to the dining hall from my dorm, which makes it double nice. Skidmore's campus also has a small, quaint pond on the south side, that is very relaxing and pretty. It is close to the recreation center and PVA buildings. There is a student center called the Case Center, which has the bookstore and other student body offices. The Starbuck Center (no relation to the coffee places) is where I go for the NSE coordinator, Registrar, and other academic aid offices. It is kinda like Carter Hall at UNC.

The dining hall is actually very nice. It is more along the style of Holmes, with the winding food stations, but it goes in a large circle instead of a funny oblong half-circle. The food is good, there is a nice variety and there is always ice cream, pizza, and salad to fall back on in case nothing else is good. Like UNC, I had to get the required meal plan, but instead of the 150 meals, I have an unlimited meal plan. This means I can go and eat whenever and however much I want. o.O This in combination with the smaller campus, I will need to watch myself and go exercise more at the recreation center. >.< There are Dining dollars here as well, that can be used for a variety of things both on and off campus, which will be nice.

The buildings themselves are of nice architecture and the insides are very nice. The older buildings are slightly worn, but nonetheless are very pretty. The desks are the same as Greeley; they are the ones with the itty-bitty writing surfaces that do not hold much. The classrooms are smaller and hold 25-ish students.

One fun thing about Skidmore is that there are no sport scholarships offered, so the sports programs are based on interest. I find this a nice change from all the hype about collegiate sports. But, that being said, Skidmore does not have an American football team which could be compared to UNC. Here there is more emphasis on hockey, soccer, and lacrosse.

Other than these things, the college campus is mostly like any other, it has academic buildings, administration buildings, a student center, recreation center, nice landscaping, &tc.

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My room and the dorm itself is also a new and different experience. As I have mentioned before, the dorm is much bigger than I am used to in Decker. Instead of a two person roommate style, I live in a four person suite-style. However it is not like Pres Row at UNC with a door that leads into the separate rooms, but rather there is a corridor that branches off the main corridor and leads to the rooms. The bathroom is thus available to the entire dorm. There are locks on the doors, but it will take some time to get used to them. Hopefully, there will not be hard-core prank wars. n_n.

Anyway, my room is nice. It is about 10' x 12', so somewhere close to the rooms downstairs in Decker. I have a really nice desk/dresser with a cork board, a light, and bookshelves above. To the right of the chair are my drawers for school supplies. To the left is the dresser drawers for clothes. I have a closet, but...it has no doors. o.O It is just an open alcove in the room with a shelf and a bar to hang clothes. Perhaps when I go the store I could buy a shower rod and a sheet to make a make-shift curtain. My bed is nice, but it is lower than what was at UNC and is not adjustable.

BUT the nicest thing about the room is the window seat. It is this nice little area that has a raised cushioned seat where I can sit and look out the fairly large window in the room. It has its own light and there is also another side window that opens to let in fresh air. When I first looked at pictures of the campus I did not see the window shade, and I thought that weird, since it would make having some privacy difficult. But as it turns out, there is a window shade, so no worries.

I have decorated my room with posters and other pictures that I have collected from the past few years at UNC. Some are of Audrey Hepburn, others are of Casablanca, and Monty Python.

Well, hopefully I have described most of the campus and the basics of my room well enough for now. As soon as I get pictures loaded onto the computer and onto the blog, the places and things I am describing should be better explained.


Until next time,

"All knowledge is precious, whether or not it serves the slightest human use." ~A.E. Houseman