(Antioch) The atmosphere at Antioch gets inside your head and

Alumni Survey

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Male

Quite Bright

Date: Oct 18 2005
Major: (This Major's Salary over time)
The atmosphere at Antioch gets inside your head and doesn't let go. I was a student there in the mid-late '80's when the endowment had "bottomed out", enrollment was very low and the condition of campus infrastructure was atrocious. I have read that these conditions have improved somewhat; however, the "cultlike" atmosphere remains. Students who apply are rarely, if ever, rejected and a large portion of the students just did not take their academics seriously. Most students were addicted to incompletes. A sizable portion of students clearly had serious emotional problems (the rampant drug use on campus didn't help) and the rate of attrition was dreadful. Although this may be true to a greater or lesser degree of all liberal arts schools, you are essentially a "public figure" within a few weeks after orientation and that persona stays with you to the end. Make sure it's a good one - people who perhaps get involved in so much as one bad relationship could literally have the Dean of Students office conducting surveillance of them (and I am NOT, repeat NOT, exaggerating this), and don't expect the administration to bother investigating campus scuttlebutt before deciding to act on it. The co-op program probably is what keeps the place going in terms of attracting students, but its administration is a joke and from what I can tell nothing has changed. When I was at Antioch, a co-op adviser lied to my face about promising to keep consideration for a job open before he handed it to another student without notice: since it was my last quarter on co-op, I lost the opportunity to get one of the co-op list's most sought after jobs. The co-op program is just delusional about how students should be expected to go to a new environment they are not familiar with and make a pittance of a stipend and somehow manage to support themselves without incurring deeper debt. Despite all these facts, I did work with some talented and committed faculty members who clearly have sacrificed lucrative careers to try and make things work there. What do I mean about Antioch "staying inside your head?" Just a few months ago (18 years after I graduated, mind you!), I got a call from the school's counseling center claiming that someone identifying themselves as me was making "alarming" calls to their office. I immediately assured them that I did not make, and no knowledge of, these calls. The e-mail that I got in reply strongly insinuated that they thought I had and that they were going to take action through "the authorities"; after that they backed away from that accusation but refused to tell me what the nature of the calls was and then they blandly threw up their hands and said they didn't know who made them. We're talking about potential identity theft, but they didn't want to bother. But I'll say this for anyone who goes there: You may or may not get the best education, and you may feel you're cracking under the stress of being in a social fishbowl, but if you can survive Antioch, you know that you've proven your strength of character, and not even Antioch can take that away from you. Graduate school and law school were a breeze by comparison.

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