Yes, I have a student ID number but I have no idea what it is and neither do any of my professors.
In my college-searching experience, I looked at a variety of schools, and ended up applying to 17 (and toured even more). In my many college tours, something that came up often was class sizes and the interactions of students with professors. Some talked about lecture halls with anywhere from 100-500 students and some talked about how you would never take a class with more than 50 people in a room. It wasn’t really something that I had even thought or cared about until I heard it on my 5th tour in a row. At that point I began to think about it and I decided that I did not want to go to a school where I would become a statistic or a number.
Now that I am 4 years down the road and have only a semester left, I am so grateful to go to a school not only where I am known to my professors as a name and much more than a number but also to a school where I feel that I connect to many of these professors and they genuinely care about me as a student and a person. They take the time to learn about each student as an individual. A perfect example is that there are professors that I see on campus that I haven’t taken a class from since Freshman or Sophomore year, and they are always to say hello and many of them even greet me by my name.
Going to a school where I am able to make these connections with both professors and other students has given me room to excel both inside the classroom and out. My professors know about and ask me about my activities outside of class that have little or nothing to do with their subject. They can read student’s faces and gauge easily whether or not we understand. Students feel comfortable with the other students, professors feel comfortable with the students, and students feel comfortable with the professor.
In the end, I am so thankful to have chosen a school where I am much more than just a number.
