I read a story last week about the new residence hall in the Elliott School of International Affairs. The rooms are immaculate, they might be some of the best in the entire country and the views, which include sights of the memorials and the capitol, are most likely the best out of any dorm in the country. The residents said they were pretty happy with the room… but upset that there was no entertainment center provided.
No entertainment center provided? Oh no, where in the heavens will they ever put their oversized televisions and state of the art stereo systems?
Maybe this is why GW was simultaneously ranked ninth for “dorms are like palaces” and sixth for “least happy students” by Princeton Review in their annual ranking of 345 colleges nation-wide that include rankings for topics ranging from drug-use to quality of academics.
Understanding that nice dorms do not necessarily make for happy students, it is silly that GW students reported that they were less happy at school than students attending schools like the Colorado School of Mines – who was ranked eighth least happy.
GW was the sixth least happy student population, out of 345 schools, and this is one thing I do not blame on the GW administration. It is definitely the result of having so many spoiled kids in one place.
Are you a constant complainer? I am definitely one of these people sometimes. Everything is so nice that I find myself complaining when Montague’s is out of Swiss cheese, or when the pool on top of the Hall on Virginia Avenue (seriously, a pool on top of a freshman dorm) is closed.
But please, no entertainment centers? These are exactly the people that are answering Princeton Review surveys and asking for extra space to complain a little bit more. These are the same people who would really like you to believe they are more unhappy than students attending the Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, Ohio – whose students were ranked twentieth least happy.
GW appeared in other rankings as well. While students complained their way to sixth least happy in Princeton Review, the school as a whole was ranked one of the twelve hottest schools by Kaplan/Newsweek. Things must not be that bad.
So let us try and reevaluate our level of happiness, and if GW is really getting you down, go ahead and check out the Colorado School of Mines, it sounds like a much happier place.
-The writer, a sophomore majoring in International Affairs, is the Hatchet opinions editor.
