everything you need to know about attending Samford University

Intro hey everyone welcome back to my channel my name is Reagan and I have some fun guests with me here today hi I'm Maggie I'm Annabelle um so today we're just going to be talking to you about the realities of going to Sanford University uh because when I was thinking about going here there was like no information on it so we're going to fill you in on all the great and bad things about our school to begin with what I will say is that like when you're searching for a college of where you want to go every college is going to have pros and cons to it so and if we're saying bad things about the school every school is bad things you just got to weigh them when you're deciding decide what's most important to you okay so first we'll why we chose Samford start with why we chose Samford I'm you can go first okay so I just sford because well I wanted a really pretty college that was like one of my really big top things the construction inside so it was really pretty here plus it's in the South because I wanted it to be warmer in the winter rather than going to the north but it's pretty cold right now it's kind of cold so it's proving me wrong and I wanted a Christian college and I wanted a small College um cuz I went to a small school so I wanted another small school and the Christian Community um and like just like to be surrounded by people like that so yeah yeah I chose Samford because one again as she said it's a really pretty campus and then also what I liked about it I looked at some Christian Schools I looked at Pepperdine and a couple others and then some just like bigger State schools and what I like about Stanford as a Christian School is their requirements you need like we have these things called combo credits which we'll talk about more later but I don't feel like they force it upon you in a sense of like their requirements of how many chapels and stuff we have to go to are way less than like pepper Dy or Liberty or like other Christian schools and so because of that I feel like it Fosters a community where where all the people here it's not forced and I feel like the people here genuinely have relationships with the Lord and are keeping you accountable and encouraging you in that and so a lot of the time it's you deciding to go to certain things because you want to go to instead of because you're forced and so that was one thing I really liked and then also the size of it I think it's a great size because it's big enough where you're still meeting new people every day but it's also small enough where like it's really easy to build community here like I've had a lot of people say it's like spoonfed too here like there's so many opportunities to get into Community with people outside of your sority outside of your major like in every good in just every general area um and like lowkey I chose it because the Holy Spirit was like this is where you're going I was like all right cool so yeah real going off what rean said for the first thing um I feel like cuz a lot of Christian colleges I didn't know this but or some at least cuz I'm from Kentucky there they have stuff on like or I don't even know but anyways they have stuff on Sundays so it's like some people stay on campus or there's like a church basically on campus but I like go Sanford they like encourage going off campus for church and so like almost everybody goes to church Sunday like that I know at least freshman and like cuz every morning the parking garage is empty cards are scattered people out to lunch after church all at different churches there's a bunch like there's like so many churches like I go to different Church than they go to and they're both great so and then um I wanted like a state school at first I wanted to go to UK where all my friends went University of kentu and I was I only applied to here and there and I yeah I app that's really different schools Kentucky's like a 98% acception so it's like okay I'm pretty sure I'm safe there and then but it was my backup and so luckily I got in here and everything but um I didn't like Sanford I wasn't even considering it junior year but then I was like fine I'll go toour it cuz my mom wanted me to go to a Christian college but I told her no I went to a Christian High School I'm going to a big state school I want to change it up I don't want to be in a bubble my whole life well I toured Sanford and I was like no I need to go here because a state school would be too much after going to a Christian School third through 12th grade and I'm glad because I feel like if I went to UK even though I'd be in like student Fellowship Christian thing I don't think I'd have as good of a relationship anyways mini rant basically the Christian Community is why I chose it and the pretty campus what to expect yeah okay so now we'll talk about like kind of expectations versus realities or things we didn't know coming in slash just The Vibes I guess would say oh over 50% of the student body came from a private Christian High School if not more than that but my roommate came from a big public school and it was a culture shock for like 2 weeks and now she absolutely loves it and so like if yeah same with her roommate so like if you come from public school you're fine just be aware of like a lot of people didn't come from a public school but You' be totally fine if you did and then another thing is like football season why there's this is so true while there's football games on campus like go go cheer the team on and all we have tailgates U it's also dry campus so tailgates look a bit different here I've never been one but you have yeah talk about it yeah um the tailgates they like well we're in a sorty so go try it out so we got to our we got to our tent but like there's um there's tents for different frats and sororities and everything and they're like fun they have catered food they have they paint posters for picture time but it's not like it's not like going to a tailgate at Alabama to don't think that yeah it's nothing like that in the football games very low attendance but we went to play Auburn at Auburn and everyone went to that yeah so we have one big game a year I think we play Florida next year and I will be going yeah and so and is it at Florida yeah yeah oh okay yeah and I know we've played um Georgia the year before Ked yeah um so we play one big game a year but with that a lot of people while Samford because it's not a public state school has a lot of people from different states like my friends are from Minnesota Florida Texas Kentucky Tennessee like we're from all different states a lot of people here are Alabama or Auburn fans and because of that on the weekend during football season most people are out of town at an SEC school but I will say with people being gone there's still always things to do with people here like I'd be here on weekends and I'd still always have people to hang out with and to do so as much as campus looks dead you're fine like you're not just in your room all day boor so the dorms like on my tour at least they showed us a corner room and it was a lot bigger than the actual dorms um or Veil they showed us Veil but they show I got show Pitman okay they showed me cuz my friend this year has a corner room and it's gigantic and they showed me like that room on the tour they're not all that big like this is my room it literally it's tiny her room smaller than yeah they're they're cute and they are good enough um yeah they're all different sizes every single room is a completely different size completely different layout come prepared to be flexible because no one's plans worked out how they thought they have like full closets I do not mine's like a rod with a curtain but my clothes are under my bed and I made it work so you figure something they don't talk about is like how they're all different layouts let's talk about food yeah okay food so at Sanford because this D body is small how we are expanding a lot lowkey so like if you're watching this in years like they're building three new housing buildings right now a lot of B Construction yeah there's construction everywhere right now um but we have one dining hall and it's called the calf it's not great food um I was definitely expecting I wasn't expecting good food but I wasn't expecting like what we have either um like I I I know like the workers like work really hard and stuff so it's like not really on them I think it's just like it's a lot of yes that and it's like a lot of the same food and so there's like there's always Pizza almost um but it's the same kind of pizza and then like every I don't know like Monday Tuesday it's always like chicken tenders and so like you or like burgers so like you can always count on those things but it definitely gets tiring eating the same things I would say yeah cuz we like we have like five or six stations but there's always chicken and rice all my friends always eat chicken and rice that's like all I eat now um there's always like a cvy that's like potatoes and ham or some sort of meat and then omelette bars are really good in the mornings there's a salad bar and then there's a sandwich station it just gets old Yeahs good but the food most of the time is fine a lots of times the rice is a little undercooked it's a little hard a little little crunchy one time my chicken was pink one time yeah I've never I feel like for the most part the food's always cooked like safe to eat and we do have Mo's downstairs Chick-fil-A downstairs Henry's an asaio Place Einstein Bagel Einstein Bagels Li and then a freshen across campus so there's restaurants so how the dining money works is as freshman everyone has to have the same Dining Plan and it's 19 meal swipes so basically a how our CF works is you walk in and instead of checking in at the front you just walk in you can sit down wherever and then let's say I want chicken rice I swipe ask for chicken and rice go back let's say oh I'm still hungry I want a salad I go swipe for a salad oh salad wasn't that great I want a slice pizza go swipe for Slice Pizza it all counts as one meal swipe if it's within 90 minutes I think of swiping and then there's at each like Chick-fil-A Mo whatever there's items that are for meal swipe so like a Chick-fil-A sandwich with fries and a soda that's a meal swipe but then if you want like a fruit cup with it or if you want like a smoothie Bowl that's your Dining Dollars and we have $200 a dining dollars per semester and the 19 meal swipes refresh each week buy some like groceries for your dorm if you can because when the calf's not hitting it's definitely nice to have like fruit in here or something this is good to know on the weekends all the downstairs in our lower you see which is the restaurants those foods are closed it's spiritual life really annoying next topic spiritual life on campus I guess we kind of talk we kind of touched it basically what I'll explain is our what we call lowkey Jesus points um our combo credits so in order to graduate like a graduate requirement is you have to have 60 combo credits um and so you need 30 by sophomore you're 30 by once you graduate how you get them is there's multiple options so Tuesdays we have Campus worship at 10:00 a.m. and there's no classes on Tuesday Thursdays at 10:00 a.m. um to make sure you have the opportunity to go to Campus worship it lasts 50 minutes we do worship and then a sermon and then you can do this thing called a Cadre so there's community cadr and there's campus C's campus cadr we're in one right now are you in one this semester no most of them you're with a professor um and you're studying a book basically but it's not like a book in the Bible it's like a Christian book about random topics and then the service cadres are like community service you're working for nonprofits I think I'm going to do that next semester cuz that's what I'm working with right now so it's exciting yeah it is exciting and you can also they just randomly have speakers come or like before Christmas I would want to get a credit where it was like every language like school like I was in Spanish and we went and we each like each language sang like hyns for Christmas in their language so yeah very much emphasize finding your own church finding your own College Ministry outside of campus and getting plugged in into the community of Birmingham and not just staying on campus to get fed spiritually but also going out and seeking that yourself people are like come here not everybody but I think most like come here to like seek that Christian Community and so you will find people who want want to be in that and like who will pour into you because they want to be poured in as well so I think that's cool yeah like I haven't really encountered anyone like blatantly mean like yeah think people that are like rude or give me dirty looks or aren't very nice but like no one's been like a straight up bully to me because I feel like if you didn't want to go to a small Christian School why would you come to a small Christian School you'll meet them one time you say hi to them for like a month or like lowkey a semester and that's one thing I've noticed too is I feel like if you seek it out upper classman especially the first semester very intentional to get to know you and help you out with anything you need which I don't think's normal at all like not even ones in your sority just like in general yeah rush I have an entire Rush Vlog so like we're not going to touch on that but I'll link it if you want to watch it if you have any questions about rush you can comment on this video or that video and I'll I'll answer but most of it's covered in there academics oh okay this is one thing I did not expect coming I feel like Samford has a relatively easy acceptance rate like a high acceptance rate like it's not super hard but lowkey everyone here I feel like smart yeah it's like defin I was kind of surprised how smart people are here the acceptance rate is 84% so take that 73 it's like 84 so like University of Kentucky is 98 so that's a big difference it's harder than SEC schools but it's not like an IV League school no um so if you're decently smart you'll probably get in but also the workload is going to be harder than it would be at an SEC school right it's like lowkey harder than I thought yeah it's hard work but you'll get it in it's a liberal art school and so with that when choosing to go to liberal arts school you have to they basically want you to be well-rounded educationally so like I'm a business major but we have required classes we to take so like freshman you take cortex one first semester cortex 2 second semester and it's analyze text so first semester you're analyzing Socrates Aristotle Shakespeare there's just required classes you have to take um you have to take two different English classes so just know you're not immed immediately starting your major classes be prepared of like you're you're doing all the things which has some pros and cons to it yeah it's a lot of busy work yeah it's easier than your major classes which is a pro But A G it's like work that you don't care about really right cuz you're like wa yeah and then you like want to blow the class off you're like it still matters still great so one student engagement thing about sford is I feel like the community here is very much we're all busy bodies I feel feel like like one thing they preach a lot yes I feel like everyone wants to get involved in everything and it's not sustainable or like for me I felt like first semester I had some sort of Bible study church service Christian event 6 days a week but then you begin to neglect like your actual relationship with God because it's just like you're doing like jesusyoutube things to get involved in like if you don't want to be bored you will never be bored but you also just have to be aware that like the culture of the school is like overachiever lowkey it's yeah it's like number one for student engagement in the country yeah and they have flags of that everywhere but um so I literally have something like five at least five out of the seven days a week still like last semester it was more I still do I'm very busy but it's like I I'd be sitting in my room if if not right it's just you got to balance it and see what you want to focus on and what you want to prioritize oh my gosh we have to touch all things boys on this okay so we go to a Christian School what does that mean no boys just kidding basically if you let me rephrase that couple things here the ratio of boys and girls that's not where it's getting at but I should mention that 7030 girls confused you're going with this you'll see you'll see okay no ring by Spring is the thing here sore they say ring by Spring Junior okay so here's where I'm getting at couple things here number one the guy to girl ratio there are a lot we at a small Christian School there's a lot more girls here than there are guys however our grade specifically has a closer ratio than all the other grades know that yeah we're more 6040 I think the other GRS are more 703 however with that if you are in a sorority and you need a date to- dat party you have to find them two months in advance because one finding a single guy that's hard two finding a single guy when there's 200 other girls needing a single guy yeah that's close enough to your age that's hard three they are at every single formal every single weekend so they're tired be aware of that finding dates can be a challenge you you should be able to find one but like the ratios secondly with the guy girl thing we the door the what secondly what the no boys means if it's not visitation hours there are no boys in bail if you obey the rules yeah okay yeah if you listen to the rules no boys in here past 10 p.m. on weekend midnight on weekends okay anyway we have visitation hours so guys can't come and roam freely we can't go in their dorms freely so how it works is it's on weekdays is it 10:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. I think it's like yeah yeah yeah and then on weekends I don't know the starting time of the day but it's till midnight 10:00 a.m. till midnight on the weekends which I believe is Friday saturday. Sunday yeah basically how it works if I want to have some of my guy friends over in my room you go down there's an RA in like the center of our dorm you go check them in and basically the guys if like the guys are coming in my room the guys turn in their student ID and then they ask me for my phone number and then they give them like a lowy l looks like a bathroom pass you'd have in high school yeah like it is a bathroom pass but it's like a hall pass stay in that room I don't know what happens if they're in there past curfew but lowkey if they're in there past curfew then they're just not checked in you get um I think they probably well I would assume they text or call you if they're in their past curfew like hey probably heads up like it's pass Cur if you're signed in yeah which you should be I sign people in they're always out by 10 so I don't know right I don't right cuz I'm like if you're signed in people if you like sneak people in you'll get fined you get in trouble if they get caught yeah like the other gender in your room and then yeah and it goes like on your record I think Loki sometimes it's annoying but at the end of the day it's not that big of a deal yeah just sign in it's just like just it's not that big deal cuz it's like if I just want to go say hi to someone I got right for 2 seconds sign in give them my ID it it's it could be worse because I know some Christian Schools like their visitation hour is 2 hours a day and they have to keep the door open and my friends Christian School they're not allowed to have right so like for a Christian School it's really not that strict one thing that is kind of nice about it is because we're in all girls building past 10 p.m. what can just like walk around in your PJs and like not be concerned about it so like that's honestly really nice like I showered last night at like midnight or something and I could be walking back in my towel and not worry about a boy like in the hallway exactly and like we have communal bathrooms most people in Veil do and so basically there's like on the floor like the third floor which is like the main lobby of our building there's bathroom for the guys to go to one thing that's really nice about our campus is the gates lock at 11:00 p.m. and so it's super safe at night for girls and with that like if you're driving back and you get to campus after 11:00 you just they look at your parking sticker and let you in but no one that's not a sa for student is going to be on campus past that time unless like I have a friend come staying with me so it's like very safe um so you can just like go hang out random buildings too if you want but I feel like midnight on week like it's it could be so much worse also the souths everyone goes the cookout at like 2:00 in the morning so that's something to do too yeah I didn't know the cookout was a thing till I got here yeah me neither so out W Burger Taco Bell yeah Waffle House everything you're under a l so go there with your guy friends if you really want to do we have any other rules um it's dry campus just a dry campus and so obviously you can't have alcohol in your dorms even if you're like of age living on campus I think and you can't like post pictures campus obviously there's alcohol on campus but it's not supposed to be yeah I think that's a good point like just because it says it like there's still going to be don't expect there to everyone to obey those rules when you come here but if you are coming here because you want an environment that that's not the scene that's it's not like if you want to find it you'll find it at any school you go to but that's not like I have never once like I have friends who struggle with that at bigger schools of like that's the only thing they have to do whereas like because that's not the main community of people here there's always fun things to do outside of partying yeah yeah there's not like parties on campus but there are people with alcohol and stuff so it's not like a dry campus but it's supposed to be a dry campus like you're not going to walk around and see people openly with it ever yeah like I have I mean others probably have oh okay social suitcase college butterf a good point it's a suitcase College I don't care what people say sord is a suitcase College which means people go home on the weekends cuz everyone lives around here so but not us not us and they tell you on tour that it's not a suitcase College it is it is my mom found that out and she's like I don't that's so cuz she didn't want me to go into a suitcase college at least my them and my roommate live too far away to leave so at least I have them on the weekends right like like my roommate and sweetmates we all live 9 and 1 half plus hours away so like there's people on campus always like don't feel like you're going to be alone but like fall break I didn't go home because I lived so far and I didn't want to pay for a flight ticket I was probably the only person on game one tip for incoming tips for incoming freshman freshman to Sanford yeah okay Maggie oh wait you go first I okay so my one tip I think would be to have no expectations like none at all because coming in I had like a lot of expectations about things were going to go interesting and they were all shattered I would say um I I agree yeah it was a it was like a shock I was like what the heck is going on I almost transferred I I was thinking about it yeah doesn't mean I got the papers out or looked at any other I just it went my mind it definely like comes through your head except if you're ring yeah I love it not cuz it's not a good school it's I love it now it's just hard at first cuz it's so small yeah so I would say just no expectations advice I would say come into it with an open mind and be okay if like people you're friends with at the very beginning you don't friends with that's okay it doesn't mean you don't have value as a person it literally means you're meeting so many different people and you're deciding who you click with the best and it's okay to have different circles with people in different areas myp advice would probably be to manage your time and like not to keep yourself too much free time but also to give yourself free time cuz like don't do class Friends Meeting chapter dinner like have some time to rest but also don't my first like month of school I found myself laying around on my bed after class and before like all afternoon cuz I didn't know what to do and I quickly got like unmotivated so I would like get involved or go workout or something but also make sure you have some alone time cuz it's a lot of like being with people go and it drains your social battery so manage your time well in both ways and also if you feel like you don't have time for like to be with Jesus you do just get up a little bit early and read your Bible or before bed I do it before bed cuz I don't want to get up early but yeah yeah I would say too going off of that um I'm like definitely more of an introvert and so like even sleeping with people like you're never alone so I have two roommates um and so it's like I'm just like never alone and so like I can't even like sleep without like like recharging myself like I have to like act like the only time I feel like I'm alone is when I'm in my car which is like really weird I like to go on drives with myself for my long time that's good conclusion but yeah I will say overall sford is a great school their education's really good they're really good at finding you jobs after and finding you internships especially like business school nursing school's really really good um but yeah it's a great school I absolutely love it yes it fits me perfectly you just have to have the realities cuz I was like anal I came with very high expectations and I might be embarrassing I don't mind I cried a lot the first month of school um because I missed home I'm I'm seven 8 hours away but I'm F now and I love it so okay okay bye th 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