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Why is FGCU losing so many of its freshmen?

Published: Friday, July 23, 2010

Updated: Friday, July 23, 2010 09:07

Laura Fallon

One problem that FGCU has is a lack of a university community. As a university we don't have an identity that the student body can relate to, which is discouraging to many students. When students come to a university, they expect to find a school identity. One important part of a university is having some sort of concept that current students as well as prospective students and alumni can identify with, an identification for all the graduating classes across the years to associate themselves with collectively. New College of Florida, located in Sarasota, is very open in both layout and spirit. A very small school of just barely 1,000 students, New College is known for being New Wave in teaching style, student activity and school spirit. They don't wear robes for their graduation ceremony, the students dress however they want, even in hulu wear. With an identity students can relate to, or at the very least find, a college can retain its attendees more effectively. FGCU lacks this university identity, and it is up to us, the student body to develop that identity. We are a young school and we have as part of our foundation environmental awareness and conservation. We can use this and other unique features such as; our proximity to the beach, a surrounding community rich with a diverse variety of people, a city area of downtown Fort Myers close-by yet also the nature preserves and baseball spring training in the midst of our area; can all help us create our own indentifiable university identity.

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1 comments

Anonymous
Mon Nov 1 2010 19:26
As a freshman at FGCU I personally love it. A lot of my friends that go here love it just as much as I do, in fact some people that I know from other Universities are transferring here next spring. I feel that FGCU is a great school, but there could be some changes made to it that not only will affect the freshman drop out but upperclassmen would agree with too. Most of the students I have talked to would like a more traditional University, much like UF,FSU,UCF all the big Universities our friends attend. We want to have a football team so this school can have more spirit, we would like to have a homecoming, we would like traditions much like the older, bigger schools have. For example: FSU's birthday tradition of getting thrown into their huge fountains. We need to have more dining,housing, and major options. I think most people would just like a more traditional, bigger school. I do agree with what Christopher Hernandez said about FGCU not being the first choice and bringing up admission GPAs. I feel if it was harder to get in FGCU would be looked at as a better school, which many would want. I think it would bring in more competition. I understand we want to get big as a school, but letting everyone and their mothers in, sometimes might not make people proud of getting into such an easy school. For the very few people I have talked to and want to leave, I found that all of them were out-of-state. What if most of the drop outs were out-of-state, would that affect how our school looks at the rates?Would that affect anything at all?Overall, I love this school and have had a great experience so far, but if i could change a few things it would be harder admissions and a football team. It kinda sucks walking to class seeing bumper stickers of "gators" or "seminoles" we need more school spirit around here, people need to be more proud of the school they are attending.




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