Wheaton College-Norton Top Questions

Wheaton's professors make an effort to get to know you. They want every student to succeed and fully grasp the subject matter. Wheaton is committed to small class sizes, with very few exceptions. Class participation is encouraged in most classes.

academics? yikes. the academics are pretty tough, but if you keep working its survivable. the professors definitely know your name, which is very helpful. i've spent a good amount of time out of class with professors. the library is always a hotspot of student activity, which is good and bad.. while you'll see a majority of your friends there.. its tough if you have trouble concentrating.

Wheaton is such a small campus with an academic environment that encourages those unacademic connections with professors. One professor has come to several of the ultimate frisbee practices and he is very capable. Another is very involved with the meditation group and I hear of others all the time. Students will carry class discussions outside of class, anything from going over the lesson of the day to what crazy thing professor so-and-so did today to try to help the class get it. My most unique class would be my freshmen year seminar, which concerned the academic study of mediation methods over the years. There are some core requirements, but most people end up doing these just because Wheaton students tend to have broad academic interests, but Wheaton does encourage preparing for the world after college, be that with graduate schools or jobs.

With small classes comes lots of class participation and intellectual courses. If you want to have individualized attention and recognize most of the students as you walk around the Dimple, then Wheaton is the place for you. If you want to hide and just be a number, this isnt the place for you. Class sizes are small, the introductory courses are often larger, but that means that you might have a 40 person lecture class as opposed to an 11-15 person class.

Professors are usually quite close with students, though there are of course some exceptions. It is not uncommon for students to call professors by their first names, or to have their professors' cell phone numbers in their contacts list.

Academics are definitely top notch at Wheaton. We mainly pride ourselves on our academics, and it is true, we have excellent professors who know what they're talking about. It's HARD sometimes though. Many professors are really tough, you're always doing homework and making sure you did it correctly or else you WILL get a bad grade. Grading is really tough here, especially if you are in the sciences, you need to do everything right the first time or else you can really take a beating. But, I must say, out of everything at Wheaton, the academcis are the most interesting and have inspired me to study a lot.

The small size makes it possible to have small classes, but even in the larger ones, ALL your professors know your name, and say hi, freshman year to senior year. They're easy to talk to, and easy to get in touch with if you need ANYTHING.

Professors know you by name, small personal class sizes, very tough and demanding academically, professors very easily accessible outside of class/during office hours, professors always willing to help out beyond class, class participation is very common, many classes depend on participation, students are competitive w/ themselves, academically very strong school

Professors know me, and you work very closely with them. Classes are also generally hard, but that is a good thing. Students are very scholarly, but they also make time to party, which is another good thing - they generally know how to organize their time. Class participation is pretty good, and I have had MANY intellectual conversations outside of class - the learning doesn't stop outside the classroom. All the classes are fairly unique I think, but I haven't been to other colleges really, so I have nothing to compare it to except my very small high school which had no diversity in their class layout. Both my departments (Sociology and Anthropology) were okay - there were some professors that weren't my favorite, but you make do. It is good to meet with professors one on one, it makes learning much easier. Wheaton's academic requirements (as far as foundations go) are NOT FUN. We had to fulfill connections - these are honestly BS. Connections only require you to take classes that you don't need to take.

Classes are small, which is fantastic. All of my professors know my first name and will stop and talk to me when they see me... the largest class I've ever been in was 50 people, which still doesn't restrict people from asking questions. Class participation is generally very high; I had an Italian class, for instance, with only 9 people in which everyone participated very constantly every day. One of my problems with the school is the lack of intellectual conversation; if you want it, you really have to seek it out. Clubs and groups are truly the way to find it.