Big or Small?

What makes a small school more appealing than a big school? Why did we all choose a university of 7000 when we could’ve gone to a school of 30,000? Is the trade off for getting the attention and advantages of a small university worth some of the disadvantages that go along with it?

Ok, so we all chose SMU for our various reasons: great education, awesome location, up-and-coming sports teams, etc. I myself valued the smaller community and class sizes that it offered and along with the top-ranked schools and entertaining social life that went along with the hard work.

Along with this smaller community of students comes some controversial downsides though. As some of us who have grown up in small towns or gone to small schools may know, when a small group of people is forced to be around each other all the time, people tend to focus on the lives and drama of others’. I feel that at times this feeling of people knowing and caring way too much about what each other do is present at SMU. I know that, for me and some of my friends at least, there have numerous times where we have felt like we’re back in high school dealing with high school drama, rumors, and gossip. This smaller community here at SMU has an issue with being too concerned about others’ habits and actions.

This doesn’t just happen through word of mouth though. With gossip websites such as Collegeacb and CampusGossip as popular sights for students to look at to see what people are saying about others, one person’s opinion or dislike for another can be publicly displayed for anyone who wishes to read it. People are called names, told they’re ugly, and have their names completely smeared on these sights, and the sad part is that most of what is put on these sites is completely untrue.

So why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we subject ourselves to criticism about our every move and word and look? That is a question there is no good or logical answer for. Maybe because we’re bored with our own lives so we find entertainment in the lives and rumors about others? All I know is that I have friends that go to many different schools that are bigger than SMU, and the general consensus is that, with a bigger school, there is less of an “everybody knows everybody” feel, creating less of a chance to know about each detail about someone else’s life.

I love SMU and wouldn’t change my decision to go here for the world. However, I really do believe that, with it being a smaller school, the amount of gossip and rumors spread is greatly increased and is a sad reality that we have to deal with as students here.