The Case Western Reserve University community is known for thinking beyond the
possible. Each week, this column aims to capture a slice of campus life.

Q: What’s your biggest goal for this year?
A: To graduate—this is my final year.

Q: What’s been the biggest change you’ve seen since your freshman year?
A: There’s been a big influx of students, new construction, increased visibility and the social life has gotten a lot better since I started here.

Q: How do you feel about these changes?
A: I appreciate them. I think it reflects a growth in the economy of Cleveland. But it makes me worried, because my favorite part about Case Western Reserve University is that it’s a small school; I love small classes, and I love the individual attention. I think that with the growth, while you’re increasing people and bringing in profit and increasing the visibility of the campus, you’re compromising something that makes CWRU really nice.

Q: What’re some changes you’ve seen with yourself?
A: Well, I just got back, because I was abroad, but I would say CWRU has equipped me with tools to deal with many types of people, taught me to budget my time—we have a lot of excess work here, a little more than is necessary to make a person successful in the real world—taught me self-respect and self-determination.

Q: How did the university abroad compare to CWRU?
A: Things are laid out for you here, but it’s much more independent abroad, and school and life are independent over there, whereas here, people have school and then they try to build a life. It sucks out so much energy that it’s hard to develop your own personality.

Q: Do you think that’s the biggest problem with CWRU?
A: Yeah, I’d say one of the biggest issues here is that they work you very hard with no proven result that that’ll help you accomplish anything.