Augusta Fisher

Professor Scott
First Year Seminar 100 Section 28
16 September 2016
Reflective Essay: My Ideal University
Seemingly different are human beings, each one needing multitudes of different things
when it comes to happiness, growing, and learning. Personally, to learn best, I must be in an
environment free of tension and stress. For those particular standards to be met in my life I need
several different things: A place to practice yoga, a place to practice meditation, a place or many
different places to hike, a place to read, and a place to practice music. The curriculum of the
University that would be tailored to my own personal needs would be much like the one here at
The University of Mount Union. As a junior and senior in high school, something that was not
very appealing to me about college was the general education curriculum that most college
freshman and sophomores have to go through to advance to classes that had to do with their
majors. With the integrative core curriculum I feel as if Im actually doing work towards my
major, rather than wasting my money and time in a class I really do not need. In addition to a
similar curriculum a small class size would be my preference.
As far as the essence of the physical characteristics of the university go, the buildings
would be comparatively smaller to the buildings of Mount Union. I imagine slews of vibrant
plant life surrounding and even covering each of the small elaborately structured buildings. In
terms of architecture the buildings would all be made of a similar material, but would be vastly
antithetic of one another. When I envision what campus would look like from the outside, I

imagine mass amounts of foliage and trees encasing the grounds in its entirety. I would want
campus to be a cool and dim environment, the trees mostly being conifers, as they are my
favorite type of tree. In a setting such as this one, I would feel at ease with myself and the area
itself would allow me to rid of my stress almost immediately. In addition to the physical aspects
of a campus like this one, the climate I would prefer would be rather temperate, the temperature
never exceeding 75 degrees or so. Cool weather is where I feel I would be able to do my best
work.
My personal experience with stress and managing stress has been a long and hard fought
journey to discover what does and does not work for me. In high school I was an athlete as well
as a musician, and with that came the struggle of juggling that with academics. Sometimes I
would find myself so drowned in work and stress that the only thing I could focus on was
running and music. I quickly discovered that doing well in school was very important to me as
well, so my sports and music performances began to reflect what I was doing academically.
There were high points. There would be several weeks at a time where I was able to balance
everything very well, and excelled in all of my academics and extracurriculars. It became
cyclical, and there would be long instances of doing very well, and then a crash. I realized I
needed something to keep myself grounded, and this is when I began practicing yoga and
meditation daily. Without it the stress in my life would simply have eaten me alive, and through
this process I found that practicing these things every day allowed me access to a reset button
if you will. Knowing these things about myself, and knowing that I need them to be successful,
my university would need the resources necessary to allow me to do these things.

The size of the university itself would not necessarily need to be small, its campus being
possibly even slightly larger than Mount Unions, but the class size would be much smaller. My
experience with learning in small groups is that the teaching and participation in those types of
environments is heightened, and overall I gain a better connection with the teacher or professor
and enjoy the learning experience more. I also think that in smaller class sizes the students can
create a more personal relationship with their peers, and when this relationship exists learning is
easier and more comfortable. The average class size at Mount Union though very small, would
not meet my personal standards. The ideal setting in which I feel I would obtain the best learning
experience would be in classes of no more than 12 students. I would also like a wide range of
diversity on my campus because I feel that gaining perspectives of many different types of
people is very important in my life.
When I close my eyes and think of what the perfect type of campus life would be, I
picture congregations of people all throughout participating in various activities, sports, clubs,
and even fighting for different causes. I would want the students of my campus to be very
activity oriented and involved in clubs that interest them, as well as give support to different
sports teams and clubs that they do not belong to. I feel that this is an area that Mount Union
does very well in, and I would want my university to model the way Mount does their activities
and clubs. Involvement in extracurriculars and clubs is something that allows me to escape from
the binds of the academia world. The things I involve myself in become an outlet, and if I did not
have access to them I feel that my life would not be quite complete. Above all else my university
would be a safe place to learn, grow, make connections, and become more balanced as a human
being.