Charlotte
I am only in my second semester at Mac and I already feel like I have pretty strong relationships with most of my professors. I have never felt like they didn't know me well enough to ask them for advice or for recommendations. Classes are almost always small enough that profs know all there students names, and normally make an effort to at least get to know a little bit about everyone. Discussions are engaging and readings are interesting.
Profs often invite students over to their houses for dinner, and if they are going to an event in the community like an art exhibit, they often ask students if they'd like to come with them.
It's been a breath of fresh air since high school where students were always competitive with each other rather than themselves.
Although a Macalester decree isn't always the most practical (depending on your major) to get a job, as a community people really stress learning rather than just a career.
Although there is a pretty substantial core requirements, most people don't mind getting the oppurtunity to take classes outside what they would normally do.
Amy
Hard. Classes are great but it's a lot of work. Not undoable though
Claire
Students take academics pretty seriously. Although students are generally not that competitive with each other, everyone wants to do really well in their classes. For the most part, professors are great and are very willing to meet with you individually if you have questions.
Brian
the academics are fantastic. there are times when the classroom is a bit too democratic, but the education that you get here is terrific.
Professors know your name, where you're from, what you did last weekend, and how you did on your last paper.
the departments are not clique-ish in terms of friend groups. that leads to spirited and interdisciplinary discussions about everything from sex, to Kant, to the Environment, to campus politics.
Stephanie
Academics at Mac are great: rigorous and challenging, but not competitive. You can actually talk to students about academic subjects without getting into pissing contests about who knows more about what. Also, the professors are smart and supportive; they won't make you feel awful about not knowing something, but they move quickly and convey a lot of information.
Lauren
Academics here are very intense, but intense without being too pretentious.
Ellie
Professors absolutely know my name.
My favorite class is American Consumer Culture in the Environmental Studies department with Chris Wells.
My least favorite class was 305 in the Hispanic Studies department with a professor who no longer teaches at Mac because he was awful. I'm a Hispanic Studies major, and I highly recommend NOT majoring in it. I've really enjoyed some of the professors and classes, but I would advise that prospective Spanish majors (at any school) think really hard about why they want to be majors. If it's because you want to speak Spanish fluently, then you should go to a Spanish speaking country or make some Spanish speaking friends, not become a Spanish major!
Class participation is a survival tactic. If you don't participate you'll get bored because so many classes are discussion based, it will really obvious because classes are small, and it will hurt your grade because most classes have a 25{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} participation grade.
Macalester students LOVE to have intellectual conversation outside of class. The big difference I notice when I go to parties hosted by my friends who don't go to Macalester is the lack of intellectual conversation that goes on. I notice myself taking down my vocabulary a notch when I'm not within Macalester circles, which I think says a lot about the norms of Mac.
Students are not that competitive.
The most unique class I've taken is probably tied among a few different classes. Right now I'm taking a creative writing class all in Spanish, so even my writing is in Spanish, and suddenly I've discovered I enjoy writing poetry in Spanish. I'm also taking a geography class where we're using GIS (map-making software) to analyze the spatial mismatch of housing and jobs in the Twin Cities. It's a big project that we're doing for the Federal Reserve Bank, and we're going to present all of our findings to the Fed at the end of the semester. Another unique class was also geography - World Urbanization. We learned about cities from all over the world, and for our big project we each had to choose a city and make a web site about it. It was worth more than half our grade, and took a looot of time and effort, but it was so rewarding to figure out how to go about learning everything we wanted to know about a place, learning how to use website software, and then being able to display our newfound knowledge in a creative, experiential way that was very refreshing compared to the normal paper, paper, paper, exam type class.
Absolutely learning for learning's sake! Learning is a continuously evolving journey and Macalester is our launching point.
Nico
Professors are very good about learning the names of their students. I have never had a class bigger than 20 students. Students spend a lot of time studying but it does not hinder extracurricular activities. I have had classes at coffee shops and I have gone for coffee to chat with professors to address issues in class or experiences over vacations that pertain to their area of study. Macalester's academic requirements are pretty standard and there are a wide variety of classes to fulfill every requirement. I have taken some great classes, including; Natural Catastrophes in Human History (Geology), War Crimes and Memory in East Asia (Histpry), Gender and International Politics, and The UN: Past Present and Future (both Poli Sci).
Kate
do professors know my name: mostly yes, but it depends on the teacher and how vocal you are as a student
favorite class: my principles of economics class, the teacher is such a quirky fun lecturer that the hour goes by so quickly
least favorite: my first year course, the global in the local, the teacher was a jerk and the class was not at all what i thought it would be
studying: depends on the student. i study a lot but there are enough people who only study the night before a test. there's not a lot of in between, either you study or you don't
class participation: it depends on the class, but generally students are fairly vocal about the things they care about
intellectual conversations: all the time
competative: not really
unique class: intro to statistical modeling... it was ridiculous math on computers using this weird program
major/department: lowest GPA other than chem, really interesting teachers. hard. most popular
time with professors: it depends on the professor. i tend to meet with all of my profs regularly just to make sure they know who i am and that i care
academic requirements: i think they're fine, you can usually fulfill them without trying too hard
education: definitely geared towards learning for learning's sake.
Sara
Academics are by far the greatest thing about Mac. If you get really involved with one department, you feel really comfortable with all the professors and participating in activities with fellow students and the professors. It's a great feeling to know everybody in your department. Professors often have students over their houses, bring food to class, have outside of class meetings, and are generally very informal and treat their students on equal footing with themselves.