Westmont College Top Questions

I wish I had been told to be more involved in the Westmont and Santa Barbara community and to take advantage of the many opportunities to be part of organizations, clubs, or missions teams. Most of all, I wish that I had done one of the many study abroad opportunities that Westmont offers. I believe that I missed out on some very valuable learning and growing opportunities both on campus and abroad while in college, because I was so focused on achieiving top grades and getting to graduate school.

Before I had come to Westmont, I wish I would have known just how academic the school really is. We are compared to the ivy league school in the Christian realm. Its pretty tough!

I wish I had known to do all the suggested reading. In high school it was easy for me to skip the reading and ace the tests. The first couple of tests I took I recieved D's. Also I wish I would have had the sense in the beginning of the semester to wait till after I did my homework to socialize. Mid-way through the semester I got smart and started doing my reading and did my homework before I spent time with friends and my test grades improved. i ended the semester with a 3.0 GPA.

I wished knew that I am blessed that my faith in God and my focus on the values of education and spititual growth were strong enough to keep me from acting on the temptations that I saw around me.

Don't take a lot of units your first semester- give yourself time to adjust and create relationships!

That athletics are small. Alot of religion courses and strict rules

Before coming to the school, i had not visited the campus much i had just been up to play with the soccer team. I wish i had known how strict the rules were. I knew it was a Christian college but i had no idea how cut throat Westmont was with their rules, and it is almost as if they expect perfect behavior one hundred percent of the time. Most of the rules that we have go for on campus students as well as off campus students, and it feels as though they can control our lives.

That tuition would go up so high so quickly and that the college experience often feels like junior high all over again.

I wish I had known that I would need to work harder at making friends than I did. I assumed it would happen easily, and that wasn't the case.

It is a very small school and unfortunately it is quite homogenous. This isn't necessarily a terrible thing but it would have been nice to know just how different and small my experience was going to be compared to the experience at a large state school or university.