College of Charleston Top Questions

Academics are great at CofC. I graduated with honors at my high-school and did very well. I chose not to go into the Honors College here though. I've found that the classes are still pretty challenging! I think they are a great medium. Most aren't too difficult, but even the easiest require a good bit of effort. It all depends on your professor. I have gotten some great professors so far. They have always been extremely helpful and most know your name even though they have several students. My favorites have definitely been in the Arts department. The theatre and music professors are so helpful and really know what their talking about!

good mix of all different types of professors, psychology is a great department with some really great professors

Some classes are large lecture classes but never exceed 60-70 people at most. Other classes I've had, the professor knows exactly who you are, we even went to one professor's house for a cookout before finals. I feel like I put a good amount of effort in, but nothing that absolutely killed me. And teachers were very understanding about time management and/or extensions. They're also very approacheable, from personal experience. Also, I feel like each department tries extremely hard to have students active within their department, whether through clubs, internships, or jobs, they always want students to succeed.

Most of my classes the past 2 years have been General Education classes, so they're definitely bigger than the average class at CofC. So most of the time, I really made an effort to introduce myself to my professors and email them with questions or concerns (even if you already know the answer to a question or have to make something up, it's better than not trying!). My favorite class so far at CofC would have to be either my Intro. to Religion (Rels105) or my American Film Genre class (Eng 351). The religion class was SO interesting! We had to write a paper at the end of the semester that had to be no less than 7 pages and mine ended up being close to 16...I had so much I wanted to write about! My film class was really entertaining. My professor showed films every Thursday night and we would talk about them the following class--good films too! I got the opportunity to see so many classic films I never would have seen otherwise. My least favorite classes at CofC were definitely Art History 102 and Biology 102. My art history professor was fairly young and really boring. Reading from the book for an hour would have been more entertaining. It's a hard class though, I didn't study as much as I should have for the first quiz and test and did horribly. And where do I begin for Bio 102?? My professor was a complete idiot. She also taught 8th grade bio. at a middle school around here and treated us like her 13 year-olds. She 'dumbed down' the material, which would be nice in other classes, but coming from her it was just a joke. We spent an entire class period drawing chameleons in different environments to show what evolution was like...a pointless class for sure! If you have a chance, study abroad! It gives you a great opportunity to get to know some awesome professors and fellow students, especially if you go through the CofC programs!

Professors are passionate and some of the best in the nation. There are the bad ones but I personally have not experienced a single one.

Some of the students at the school don't take hard classes, skip, and don't challenge themselves, but those kids are struggling. If you want to do well, you can go to class, take challenging courses, and get to know the professors; they're ready to get to know you if you try.

All of my professors know my name. The Political Science department is very close-knit and personal. The are all very accessible, even the department head is always around to talk to. My favorite class so far has been an LGBT politics class that I took. My least favorite class was Extremist Politics. It really depends on your major and your class year as to how much you will have to study. I know some people who study constantly and some who rarely crack a book. It really depends. Class participation is very common and expected. The main focus at CofC is to teach and encourage critical thinking. Expect a lot of writing a research if you are interested in the humanities. I have many intellectual conversations outside of class, and many goofy ones inside of class. The atmosphere at CofC is competitive, but laid-back as well. It is more important to have meaningful insights and discussions than a 4.0 GPA. The most unique class that I have taken was a political science seminar course of the quest for the ideal society. We read many utopian and dystopian novels and visited planned communities and communes around the south. I am a Political Science major and a European Studies minor. I spend a fair amount of time with some of my professors outside of class, but not all of them. CofC has very rigorous academic requirements, but this is great for students who plan to go on to grad school, law school or med school. Most of my peers do not plan to end their educations with merely a Bachelor's Degree. I would say that academics here are geared toward teaching students how to research, write and think critically and be the best in whatever they choose to do with their lives.

Academically CofC couldn't be any better. Throughout my time here I haven't been disappointed in any of my professors or courses. Class sizes are perfect...on average about 25 per class - almost all professors really work to engage their students during class instead of just lecturing for the entire time...this helps to not only keep thing interesting but also enhances the student-professor relationships. CofC students are all different...however, with that said you can always find intellectual and well-rounded students to spend time with outside of class. Everyone is so unique but on the same not do not try to be so and therefore I do not believe our students are very competitive against each other but instead very supportive. I am in the Exercise Science department (which is TOTALLY AWESOME and the BEST decision I EVER made during college). All of my professors are so great - many of them I stop by just to chill and catch up.

One of the wonderful things about cofc is that most of the class sizes are around 30, sometimes even like 8. The professors there really care about what they're teaching which makes the material so much more interesting and they also care about the students. At USC, you are a number, and there is no personal relationship with the professors . Every professor, ive had so far knew my name within the first 2 weeks of the class.

good group of teachers