A beautiful October Saturday to enjoy in Homecoming activities. The Highlight of the day was not…read morejust reconnecting with hubby's college friends. Still, the Black Alumni Association is celebrating 150 years since the first Black student, Edward M. Brawley, graduated from Bucknell University. An acknowledgment of the timeline and accomplishments of Black students at the university accompanied the ceremony for the Edward M. Beasley bronze bust, made in celebration of 140 years since Brawley graduated from Bucknell.

I went to Bucknell for one semester and had a pretty negative experience which led me to leave the…read moreUniversity halfway through the year. In terms of academics, the classes were nice and the professors were lovely people, but I would recommend making sure that your chosen major is something that the University specializes in. I chose to go there for theatre, and I found that they were lacking in performance opportunities and resources for the arts in general. The classes were all beginner level, and did not extend beyond basic training. I felt like I was repeating middle/high school level classes. Bucknell is great for math, science, and engineering majors. If you are the type of person that cares about having things to do off campus, Lewisburg is not the place for you. There are very few options for entertainment and trying to shop without having access to a car is very difficult. The nearby towns are just as barren as Lewisburg. You will inevitably get stuck on campus. If you have any kind of food allergies or need for meal plan accommodations, good luck getting dining services to take you seriously. It took me six weeks of fighting the school and getting my parents and healthcare providers involved to convince them to let me eat somewhere other than the main food hall. The staff are not careful about cross-contamination and do not understand allergies at all. The social life on campus is nearly non-existent. Unless you are in a frat/sorority, it is very difficult to find a social outlet and make friends. I am personally not interested in sororities, but I found myself having to gravitate toward them to have something to do most days. It was incredibly hard to find information about clubs and groups, and the few that I joined were nearly inactive. If you care about diversity and inclusion, Bucknell is not the right university to attend. The majority of the students are white upper-middle class students who come from very rich families and they all look and talk the same. There is a severe gossip culture on campus, and the friends you make will more than likely be quite shallow. It feels like being trapped in middle school and the campus/student population is tiny so there is really nowhere to escape if you get caught in the wrong crowd of people. Most people that I met there had to rely on their academics to stay occupied and otherwise felt miserable because of the lack of on and off campus activities. Even if you do find activities that suit you, it is very hard to find nice, trustworthy people. I started there having plenty of friends and only had one when I left due to the disingenuous nature of the student body. If there is anything nice I can say, it is that the campus is beautiful, and you can definitely rely on the professors to have your back if nobody else does. If you know that Bucknell is the place for you, I wouldn't want you to be turned away by my review. My advice is just to make sure that if you do choose to go there, you are prepared for the environment: small town, intense party and frat/sorority culture, a very focused area of expertise, and a real and somewhat concerning lack of diversity and inclusion.