Large University Advantages
- More Major Choices
- More Extracurricular Activities
- Larger Classes
- Improved Social Life
- Save Money
As you narrow down your college choices, make sure you consider some of the advantages of attending a large university. Many people claim that smaller campuses are better because the class sizes are lower and you can form better connections with your peers. Larger campuses often have more opportunities in terms of classes available and clubs you can join.
More Major Choices
If you aren’t sure what you want to major in, going to a bigger college is often better than attending a smaller one. Smaller colleges can only offer a select number of majors because of the resources available. Larger colleges have more resources and more majors. If you major in a subject like business, you’ll find that you can study more topics like human resources management and supply chain management. Larger campuses also offer more unique minors like film studies, social work, business administration and criminology.
More Extracurricular Activities
When you go away to college, you probably want to sign up for various extracurricular activities. A smaller campus will usually offer fewer activities and base those options around what students liked. At a larger campus, you’ll find many more activities available. A larger university might have a newspaper, poetry magazine, television and radio station that students run as well as activities and clubs built around hobbies like politics, creative writing, bowling and painting. Smaller campuses will only offer popular activities and clubs that dozens of students join.
Larger Classes
U.S. News & World Report claims that a big advantage of going to a small school is the smaller class sizes. It also claims that this helps you get personalized attention from your instructors. The larger classes sizes that you find on a bigger campus might be to your advantage though too. You’ll find yourself surrounded by other students and have the chance to make friends with your classmates. Those larger classes might have more resources too. You may find that the professor puts more books on hold in the campus library for your classes or that your teachers offer more supplementary materials that can give you a better understanding of your class topics.
Improved Social Life
If you imagine yourself hanging out with friends at the end of the day and jumping from party to party, you’ll likely want to attend a larger university. Smaller colleges can have as few as 1,000 or even less students, and some smaller campuses do not even have residence halls for students. Living in a dormitory lets you meet people living right on your floor who have some of the same interests as you. Dorms often offer fun activities for residents too like parties and group outings.
Save Money
One of the main advantages of attending a large university is that you can often save money. Smaller colleges are often private and charge higher tuition rates. A large public university can easily have 25,000 students or more taking classes on that campus. That higher number of students helps keep tuition costs down. You may find that a larger campus offers more scholarships too, which lets you take out fewer student loans. Larger colleges can offer need-based and merit-based scholarships as well as scholarships for students enrolling in a specific program or department.
Going to a small college comes with benefits like personalized instruction and smaller class sizes, but there are just as many benefits associated with going to a larger college. Some of the top advantages of attending a large university include letting you save money on tuition, giving you access to more majors and improving your social life while in school.
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