September 05, 2016
Halle Thornton
Knowing that UCCS was going to give me a different experience than a school twice its size, I wanted to be here. I chose a university with almost 12,000 students, no football team and a campus that used to be a sanatorium.
I love UCCS, and have for the past two and a half years.
But with over 3,000 new students enrolled this semester, UCCS is growing at an exponential rate.
Because of this, the love I had for the college when I arrived in the fall of 2014 is starting to dwindle.
Dorms are filling up and parking passes are useless, because no one has the time to drive around for 30 or more minutes trying to find an empty spot.
Bigger isn’t always better.
The college I went to was great academically, but it didn’t give me a home.
I came from Texas A&M University, a large college of 58,000 students. It was the school to go to, with tailgates, parties and drinking; I thought it was all there.
Many class sizes were large, professors didn’t know who you were, much less cared if you showed up to class or not. You were lucky to see the same person twice in one year.
Originally I switched schools for a boy, but whether or not that was a smart decision does not affect how I feel about UCCS.
It is inevitable that we will gain popularity because of the different opportunities at this campus.
I’m afraid professors will slowly lose interest because they will be overwhelmed with the number of students they have to take care of academically.
Another change we will see is the demographic.
There are students who are also parents, military or they live hours away and can still call themselves Mountain Lions.
Will this population of students decrease because of the fast-paced growth of UCCS?
Everyone should have the opportunity to attend college, no matter their background, and that is one of the main reasons I love it here.
I have grown more in Colorado Springs than I ever thought I would, and I owe it to this school, these students and this environment.
When I arrived in Colorado Springs, I found it much easier to make lasting friendships.
Being in a sorority was not my only option to make friends. It didn’t matter where I came from or whether or not I was an engineering or an English major.
The fact that I was going to UCCS meant I was already part of a family.
At UCCS, the professors care about how you’re doing on more than an academic level; they genuinely care about your well-being.
I found out who I was at UCCS. I was able to join clubs and organizations without being turned down because of the mass amount of people interested, and I was welcomed with open arms.
I owe UCCS a huge thank you for helping me decide what I want to pursue when I graduate college in May.
UCCS is not CU Boulder, and hopefully never will be, so, for now, let’s let UCCS be UCCS. Let’s be proud of the fact that we don’t have everything a larger school or University does. Instead of trying to change what we are, we need to embrace what we aren’t.