so you dropped out of antioch? I've been thinking about applying... anything I should keep in mind while I try to decide?
if you visit the campus, and meet the students there, you will fall in love i'm sure. i miss people there everyday. students, staff, and faculty.
a lot is expected of you in all of your classes. there was one professor whose teaching style absolutely clicked with how i wanted to learn and how i expected college to be (a lot of lecture style class, a lot of class discussion, focus on reading the textbook on your own time to gain better context of in class discussion, 2 main papers, 2 main tests, no small in class assignments)
that is not how the majority of classes are taught in my experience. in my other classes there was a lot of 15 point assignments, weekly check ins, etc, etc that made me feel micromanaged. along with readings that it felt were never actually relevant to class. the attendance policy is also hella strict. none of that "i only showed up for the midterm and final" shit. (which is great because it holds students accountable and you actually feel like class matters to everyone in it, but is also hell because it's strict to the point that if you're sick/have an emergency/can't get to class for whatever personal reason it can have a significant impact on your grades and even ability to graduate)
there is a lot of rhetoric coming from student services/administration about "self care" and making sure you are taking good care of yourself, but like i pointed out with the attendence policy it is really hard to take good care of yourself and be an antioch student. from basically midterms on everyone is sick and exhausted. people get crabby and stay that way until the end of term.
co-op is a great idea. i saw some of my friends have experiences of a lifetime. however, co-op isn't created to be equal. if you're a poor kid who can't afford to get to spain, germany, nicaragua, the west coast, fucking indiana, then you're sort of fucked. if you aren't able to be an unpaid intern in a strange city for three months it's hard. if you don't have family/family friends/connections in cities where there are co-op opportunities it can make co-op difficult. not impossible. just difficult.
yellow springs is really cool, unless (because you're poor/paying for school yourself/whatever) you have to do your first co-op in yellow springs. in which case you'll be there for 15 months straight (longer if you do your second co-op in ys/the area also) after 15 months yellow springs feels so fucking small and you get very sick of antioch and wow. sorry i can't write about that very well yet. (note this is from the perspective of someone who has lived in a first tier suburb her whole life. i'm from a suburb of almost 80,000 and a 10-20 minute drive to the twin cities in minnesota (3 million) yellow springs suffocated me.
also there is no good chinese food in ohio.
antioch attracts the sort of people i wish i could surround myself with for the rest of my life. they're bold. they're smart. they take charge. they're compassionate and feminist and artsy and left of center for the most part. they're strange and not so strange and if you go there you will make so many good friends and you will have connections for the rest of your life, and most likely you won't have as much student debt as your friends.
all of the classes are about really great things and are taught by really great professors if the teaching style matches your learning style. i'd say if co-op doesn't sound scary to you and you are not mentally ill then you should definitely apply and probably go there. however, as a mentally ill person it was really hard and there is support in place but not enough. you got to be a real good self-advocate if you want to survive there. and you have to be hungry for it.
