I, for one, feel very privileged and lucky to be attending a prestigious (and expensive) school like Santa Clara University. Most of SCU will agree with me. However, just like any school, students will find problems with it so I asked 10 SCU students what they dislike about the school. I made sure they didn’t mention generic college struggles like hard classes and major requirements, but to give an SCU specific issue.
1. Benson food and hours
I definitely agree with this. Benson, our dining hall, provides many cuisines, but like anything, repetition becomes boring. Benson’s food is also blander than what a lot of us are used to and their pasta is often undercooked and the sauce is watered down. Plus, Benson is mainly closed on the weekends, which is convenient for students who are on campus on the weekends.
2. Gym hours
“I wish the gym was open longer so that I could finish all my homework and studying and hit the gym right before I sleep.”
3. The l ack of d iversity
“Sometimes I feel really out of place because I don’t look like everyone around me nor do we share the same lifestyle. It’s almost like I can’t find anyone I relate to and haven’t found my clique yet.”
4. Cowell Center
Cowell Center is the health center on campus. It is extremely hard to get an appointment unless you tell them it is a crisis, which makes it hard for non-local students to get medical attention. Also, Cowell is not open on the weekends, which is a huge inconvenience.
5. Lack of RLC/CF bonding
An RLC is a living community each student is assigned to and each RLC has a set number of CF's, or community facilitators, to organize events and make sure everything and everyone is doing alright.
“I’ve seen my CF maybe once or twice this whole quarter. He’s so unapproachable and when I try to go to his room, nobody answers the door. We don’t have any social events in our dorm either so I feel like it’s so hard to make friends.”
6. Random water issues
“There are so many hot water issues in every dorm all the time. It’s annoying that they tell us to go to the gym to take a shower.”
7. Longboarding traffic
It seems like everyone longboards on campus even though it’s such a small school. I’ve personally seen many longboarding accidents because it’s just very hard for longboarders to swerve through pedestrian traffic.
8. Tuesday/Thursday c lasses
Tuesday and Thursday Classes are 1 hour and 40 minutes long, which can get very long and boring. I have two back-to-back classes on these days and it gets very tiring.
9. Friday classes
My friends from other colleges are always surprised that I have class on Friday because apparently, most colleges don’t. So why do we?
10. Parking
“There are way too many slots marked for faculty, especially right outside dorms. Faculty definitely does not stay anywhere past 6 PM so why do I get ticketed when I park there in the night?”
