Why Is the Perception of College Beauty So Controversial?

[robphy]

http://campussqueeze.com/static/20-ugliest-colleges-in-the-USA.html

 

[Cyrus]

This guy put my school at number 20?
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=138377

If all the stuff surrounding the trees is disgusting, doesn’t that say something about the college? You decide for yourself.

He can kiss my ass, and learn to post real pictures of the places he criticizes.

 

[robphy]

I don't necessarily agree with his choices... but I haven't been to all of these places.
I actually liked the College Park campus, when I visited a few times.

 

[cristo]

This guy put my school at number 20?
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=138377



He can kiss my ass, and learn to post real pictures of the places he criticizes.

I think any university is going to look crappy in a picture of the low quality he has on his blog.

cyrus, have you been paid by your school to take those pics for a prospective student's guide? Your school looks beautiful; of course the bright blue sky helps!

 

[Cyrus]

Nah, I just took those with my new [at the time] camera. I got it from radio shack for 100 bucks. Takes nice pictures, but is a piece of CRAP. It goes through a fresh pack of batteries in one day. I am going to try and sell it on ebay for $50 bucks and buy something else. You get what you pay for...

 

[Moonbear]

Yeah, the guy seems to be finding the most unflattering building and posts a low res photo of it, close-up no less, so doesn't even give an idea of the campus as a whole.

The most obvious one is the photo he chose for Brandeis. C'mon, don't you think choosing a building with ongoing construction is a bit unfair?

And, perhaps if he spent a little more time at Rutgers, he'd know that there's more to it than just that downtown campus...a LOT more to it. That is the ugliest of the campuses, but the other FOUR campuses are gorgeous, and each has a different style. There's the open lawns, forests and trees on the Douglass and Cook campuses, the more modern architecture and "high tech" feel of the Busch Campus, and even an ecological preserve on the Livingston Campus. How is that ugly? Until 2 years ago, those were all distinct colleges too, so there was good reason for them to each be in different places and to appear different. Instead, he picked a really bad angle of the student center on the downtown campus, which is somewhat ugly, but not nearly as bad as that angle makes it look. I notice he didn't take a picture of any of the nearby buildings on what is known as the "Old Queens" campus, which are the original buildings from when it was known as Queens College, or the park outside the dorms that won architectural awards (the park is built on the rooftop of classrooms in the basement level of the dorm to create a greenspace where there might otherwise have just been rooftop), or the old College Hall on the Douglass Campus, which is a nifty Victorian style house.

As for what's really an ugly campus, University of Cincinnati! I don't know how he missed that on the list. They were doing a lot of construction to help improve that, but having a plain square brick building, next to something with modern architecture is strange to say the least. When I first saw the dorms, I didn't even know they were dorms...I thought they were housing projects...that's what they look like, old 1960s tenement apartment buildings.

 

[Evo]

My ex-husband left Yale to attend Dartmouth because he liked the Dartmouth campus better and liked the party atmosphere.

 

[turbo]

My ex-husband left Yale to attend Dartmouth because he liked the Dartmouth campus better and liked the party atmosphere.

Dartmouth is gorgeous, and the whole region around Lebanon is quite scenic. My old alma mater (University of Maine at Orono) featured a lot of rectangular brick buildings, but the facades, the ivies, the gardens, the greens, and the trees made it beautiful. The organist in my band was a horticulture major, and he was responsible for the maintenance of the university's green house, where his apartment was located. I worked on the grounds crew one summer, and after mowing for a couple of weeks, I got transferred to the small crew responsible for planting ornamentals and flowers around the buildings, and we'd trim or rotate out older plants, plant ground-covers, etc. If Maine had a year-round gardening climate, I would still be doing that kind of work. It was very satisfying. The on-line virtual tour of UMO does not adequately convey how pretty the campus is. As you walk along the quad, the library and the trees dominate the view, and the student union comes into play, but as you approach or walk alongside these buildings (and all the others!) the plantings dominate. Since UMO was a land-grant college, there is a nice agricultural program and a tendency to keep the place nicely landscaped. Of course, since we are in Maine, the short growing season offer summer-students, fall returns and visitors during those seasons the prettiest surroundings.

 

[Evo]

Yes, I've been to Dartmouth, very pretty. I have some pencil sketches and a watercolor of some of the buildings.

 

[BobG]

They missed the https://www.uakron.edu/pages/nll/Quaker_Square_Inn.php . Yes, those are renovated Quaker Oats grain silos that serve as the new dorms.

Not to mention the mutant blue trees.

 

[turbo]

Gotta say BobG, that campus should have made the list. Taste? Ah, not so much...

 

[BobG]

Gotta say BobG, that campus should have made the list. Taste? Ah, not so much...

When I was growing up there, I think the smell of burning rubber pretty much killed taste in everything. Polyester suits and vinyl chloride jackets were pretty big there, as was professional bowling (they hosted the Firestone Tournament of Champions at the same bowling alley as the league I bowled in).

Ah, the memories of growing up in the capital of West Virginia! :shy:

 

[scorpa]

Wow some of those are sure ugly. I'm pretty lucky, my campus is actually rather beautiful, a nice mixture of historic old buildings and fancy new ones. They actually spend quite a lot of time landscaping to, right now all of the trees have christmas lights and wreaths up but over the summer they just finished laying down lots of different colored wood chips, making new ponds, and revamping the quad area.

 

[wildman]

I looked at what he considered the most beautiful campuses. He didn't include the University of Washington. The UW is like the most beautiful campus in the entire World or if it isn't it is pretty darn close. This guy is a ignorant dork.

 

[moose]

This guy put my school at number 20?
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=138377



He can kiss my ass, and learn to post real pictures of the places he criticizes.

I was shocked too! O_O

I remember you posting pictures of your campus and it was beautiful! AHHH!

 

[Cyrus]

Not to mention the mutant blue trees.

I like those blue trees, and the building. They go well together.

 

[Moonbear]

I like those blue trees, and the building. They go well together.

I do too. Maybe that's why we both attend(ed) universities on the top 20 list.

 

[BryanP]

Er, my school is on neither of those lists... :(

 

[Office_Shredder]

Er, my school is on neither of those lists... :(

Considering there are only 39 colleges in the US

 

[BryanP]

Considering there are only 39 colleges in the US

Heh, true.

I just thought UC Berkeley would be in the ugliest college (chuckles). The math building is just some poop green color and so "sad" looking.

I haven't really been in other buildings on than Evans (the math building) during the past 4 years...

 

[Cyrus]

AHAHAHAH, how do you do that? You also spotted the signs on that video about a Trip to New York for under 100 bucks on infinite solutions.

 

[Chi Meson]

I just noticed my Freudian slip. I meant "place," not "palace."

 

[JasonRox]

Not to mention the mutant blue trees.

Yeah, that's asking for the ugliest campus.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

And, perhaps if he spent a little more time at Rutgers, he'd know that there's more to it than just that downtown campus...a LOT more to it. That is the ugliest of the campuses, but the other FOUR campuses are gorgeous, and each has a different style. There's the open lawns, forests and trees on the Douglass and Cook campuses, the more modern architecture and "high tech" feel of the Busch Campus, and even an ecological preserve on the Livingston Campus.

Don't leave out the Camden campus. It missed the ugly list because it is way too bland to be considered ugly. But Camden is not so boring as all that. It just seems that way because it is next to that Baghdad on the Delaware, Philadelphia.

 

[dimensionless]

There are a lot of things to consider when choosing a college. For me, this would not rank as a high priority.

 

[cristo]

There are a lot of things to consider when choosing a college. For me, this would not rank as a high priority.

Funnily enough, this sort of thing was what made me decide which university to go to! I went on an open day to my undergrad uni, thinking that I had made my mind up and was going somewhere else, but the fact that the campus had lots of wide open space, and a lake; coupled with the fact that it was a lovely sunny day when I visited completely changed my mind, and I ended up going there!

 

[undrcvrbro]

They missed the https://www.uakron.edu/pages/nll/Quaker_Square_Inn.php . Yes, those are renovated Quaker Oats grain silos that serve as the new dorms.

Not to mention the mutant blue trees.

Wow, I know I'm going to get slack for bringing up such an old post, but BobG's pessimism and lack of hometown pride is sickening.

I'm not from Akron, but I go to school there now. Bob, no doubt, probably remembers the big ugly commuter campus it used to be. Now, it has over 10,000 students from out of town who call UA home. The school has also invested over $300 million into campus and renovated tons of buildings(new on campus football stadium). I visited OSU and Akron's campus when I was a high school junior, and there is no comparison. There's a reason I chose UA over the bucks.

Bob, please, show some pride for you're hometown. And if you're just going to badmouth the local U, then at least make true statements.

Sorry admins, scold me if needed, but reading this thread and just doing nothing would be like pulling teeth!

 

[Flat]

Wow, I know I'm going to get slack for bringing up such an old post, but BobG's pessimism and lack of hometown pride is sickening.

I'm not from Akron, but I go to school there now. Bob, no doubt, probably remembers the big ugly commuter campus it used to be. Now, it has over 10,000 students from out of town who call UA home. The school has also invested over $300 million into campus and renovated tons of buildings(new on campus football stadium). I visited OSU and Akron's campus when I was a high school junior, and there is no comparison. There's a reason I chose UA over the bucks.

Bob, please, show some pride for you're hometown. And if you're just going to badmouth the local U, then at least make true statements.

Sorry admins, scold me if needed, but reading this thread and just doing nothing would be like pulling teeth!

How can you not like the Oval?

 

[cristo]

Wow, I know I'm going to get slack for bringing up such an old post,

Some slack? No, quite the opposite: Reviving threads over two years old is generally frowned upon.

but BobG's pessimism and lack of hometown pride is sickening.

"Hometown pride" and "pessimism"? What are you talking about? What's pessimistic about saying that a certain university should have made the ugliest university list?

 

[Vanadium 50]

Some slack? No, quite the opposite: Reviving threads over two years old is generally frowned upon.

I think he meant "flak".

A list like that that doesn't include MIT is hard to take seriously.