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College Prowler

Nightlife

Students congregate at the delis. They’re really bars, but they’re called delis (you can get decent food there, too). College and Paul’s are kinda like sports bars, Paul’s hosts Corona night on Wednesdays ($1 for a Corona), and the Leafe hosts Mug Night on Sundays, where you buy a mug and bring it with you to get cheap prices on good beer. College is the only one that always lets everyone in and is supposedly the easiest at which to drink if you’re underage. They’re a lot of fun once you’re 21 though—I like the Leafe the best. They have interesting cocktails and a more sophisticated atmosphere.

Off-Campus Dining

There are tons of pancake places, but aside from that there are a number of random places to eat, such as the Cheese Shop and Aromas, as well as chain restaurants such as Olive Garden and Chicago Uno’s.

Off-Campus Housing

Housing off campus is fairly convenient—there isn’t much available within walking distance, because of the proximity of Colonial Williamsburg and other private residences, but there are several very affordable apartment complexes where lots of students live within just a few miles (like Governor’s Square, for example).

Overall Experience

I personally love the school. Sometimes I wonder if I should have gone to a bigger school (like UVA), but I feel like at W&M, I make more of a difference in the community. I think I stand out more as an individual. I have great relationships with most of my professors and find that that helps a lot academically. I’ve made a lot of great, quality friends that I wouldn’t give up for anything. This school is really what you make of it. It doesn’t mold you like other schools do—it helps you mold yourself and allows you to grow as an individual.

Parking

The official parking policy is that only juniors and seniors are allowed to have cars. However, you can get a permit if you are a freshman or sophomore who holds down an off-campus job. If you do this, you are restricted to parking your car in the William & Mary Hall parking lot. As an upperclassman, you are allowed to park in all resident spaces on campus, which are clearly marked. You really don’t need a car unless you plan to hold down a job, though. There are plenty of people who are willing to give a ride to anyone who asks anywhere on campus, and the bus runs to the local shopping center every half hour.

Safety & Security

Although there are incidents with crime on campus a few times a semester, I have not felt unsafe on the campus at anytime. Those who do have a variety of options open to them, from campus escorts, to getting shuttled in vans, to simply calling Campus Police for rides at night. The police are dedicated and extremely helpful when needed. I usually leave my room unlocked and have even left book bags unattended with little fear of theft; the mood on campus encourages this trust.

Transportation

Public transportation is spotty. The WAT (Williamsburg Area Transport) bus system has been getting better since my freshman year, and now it runs until pretty late, but it's still not great. There are two lines that have a few stops around campus, and the other lines take you to the most popular/useful destinations in town, like Target, grocery stores, the train station, and even the outlets! But if you need to go somewhere that's not on a bus route or off the beaten path, make friends with someone who has a car on campus! There are taxis that you can call in a pinch, but they are pretty expensive.

Weather

The weather is humid and generally warm. . . . winters don’t get much snow (it usually melts once it hits the ground, with the exception of my sophomore year when we got a blizzard and a couple feet of it and school closed for four days). August and the beginning of September and May can be uncomfortably warm (like for freshman move-in and orientation), but then there are a couple of random gorgeous days in December or February that absolutely make up for it. Winters don’t usually get colder than 40 degrees or so, and it rains a lot.

Local Atmosphere

There are some other universities close by, but not right there. Hampton University is about a half hour away in Hampton. There’s also a nice movie theater there, as well as the Hampton Coliseum and the Coliseum Mall. Christopher Newport University is in Newport News, about 20 minutes away, Old Dominion University and the University of Richmond are in Richmond, and there’s Norfolk State and Old Dominion University in Norfolk.

Academics

Excellent teachers. I was deciding between two schools, and I went to visit classes at each, and made my decision based solely on the teachers I encountered at W&M. The classes are small, all are taught by full professors, and the small number of grad students means the profs are interested solely in what you are doing. You can’t do better than the professors at W&M.

Athletics

Varsity sports are really big in some cases—soccer, lacrosse, and track and field, for instance, but not so big for football or basketball. IM and club sports are really big, especially crew and hockey. I played softball for a while, and there is usually a full roster for that.

Campus Dining

The food’s pretty much just okay. I’ve had a meal plan all four years because I’m too lazy to cook for myself. The Caf is good for breakfast and okay most other times. The UC has the most convenient dining hall, but most say it has the worst food. The Marketplace is the place most people on campus like best. For what it’s worth, the head of Dining Services has been trying pretty hard to make things better.

Campus Housing

All freshman dorms are pretty much created equal, except for Taliaferro and Hunt, which are located apart from other freshman dorms and generally suck. Other than those two, the rest all have their good and bad points. I lived in Botetourt, which is a complex of small dorms (80 people apiece), which I really liked because I knew everyone in the building, while most people only know their hall. Unfortunately, they like to make some of the doubles in that complex triples when they run out of rooms, so some of the rooms are really small.

Campus Strictness

The school is pretty strict about rules. However, a lot of faculty and administrators turn a blind eye to drinking. The Student Conduct Council and Honor Council are student organizations that handle these issues. The school considers tradition to be important, so the Honor Code is very, very important. So whatever you do, never lie, cheat, or steal here.

Computers

You're required to have a computer, and you can buy one pretty cheaply through the school. The library has a pretty good number of computers so you can usually get one, though you may have to wait a couple minutes for one to free up. The entire campus is wireless, which is awesome.

Diversity

The campus is not overly diverse. They’re trying to fix that little by little, but the grand majority of students are white middle class. We have lots of minority groups represented, however, and there are many cultural student organizations. They have a pretty solid presence on campus because they hold major events like the Chinese Student Organization’s annual Lunar New Year Banquet or ‘A Taste of India,’ which is a big dinner. There’s also a Middle Eastern belly dancing club. . . . I always wanted to check that out, but never got a chance to.

Drug Scene

There is little or no drug scene on campus. The most popular drug, naturally, is pot, and you can seriously go all four years without even knowing anyone smokes up if it’s not what your friends are into. But it’s also not overly difficult to find people who do if that’s what you are into—it’s just a very low key, non-blatant thing. And drugs don’t get much harder than that.

Facilities

We have a nice Rec Center with workout machines, weights, a pool, racquetball courts, and even a juice place. Computer labs are nice and well stocked, as are the library computers. The two student centers, the Sadler Center and the Campus Center, are both nice with their own eateries, student offices, and study areas. The SC contains a basement with pool tables, video games, air hockey tables, pinball, skee-ball, a student store, TVs, the post office, mailboxes, and the Lodge One dining facility.

Greek Life

Greek life is different than most other schools. Most of the fraternities are housed on campus in dormitory-style housing. They usually have parties on Friday and Saturday nights, and the parties are pretty much the same everywhere you go. Overall, it’s a relatively weak system.

Guys & Girls

Both males and females are fairly nice, personality-wise, though you’ll find a mixed group like you will anywhere else. Two things to remember: everyone’s really intelligent, so you find the arrogant guy and girls here and there, and everyone’s slightly dorky, usually in an endearing way. If you’ve gotten in, I’m sorry to inform you, but you’re probably slightly dorky in an endearing way, too. I find everyone to be fairly attractive, and my dad seems to think we have a pretty good-looking female crowd, since he always seems to be encouraging me to date.