Academics
New College of Florida, a uniquely small and unconventional public institution, “provides challenging courses for highly self-motivated students who want a large amount of control over their academic choices.” It’s all about “self-directed learning” here (working closely with faculty advisers, “the student decides what he or she is going to learn and how she is going to learn it”). Those who can balance the intellectual freedom New College offers with the academic accountability it demands, wind up with “a rounded education that enables them to critically and pragmatically examine and understand the world in which we live.” The academics “are undeniably awesome” at New College, while the small-school setting and the student body “encourage a love of learning, whether it be academic, political, or hobby-related.” It’s the sort of school where “it is very popular for groups of students to get together to talk about class readings outside of the classroom, usually at the college coffee shop, as a means of socializing.” New College undergrads receive “narrative evaluations instead of grades. These evaluations give advice and help us to become better students.” Many here “love having written evaluations in which our process and progress are documented, not only the final outcome. The evaluations force students to fully participate and the professors to pay close attention.” All students must write a senior thesis to graduate; reports one undergrad, “recently we had a survey…on which one of the sections dealt with the possibility of making the senior thesis optional. There was an overwhelming response that this was unacceptable. I think that says a lot about how proud we are of our academic standards.”
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