Academics
Taylor University is a Christian university in Indiana, delivering a unique liberal arts education that incorporates ethics, stewardship, faith, awareness, and responsibility into a cross-disciplinary curriculum. The Foundation Core is s series of requirements that allows the more than two thousand undergraduate students to develop a “big picture” view of how the different disciplines influence one another, and students often complement it with a semester spent studying abroad in China, Ecuador, or Ireland, with several January term opportunities available as well. “Many people [here] come from many different places in the world,” and there is “a very strong sense of self value pushed on the students.”
Professors are “great and teach everything that they have to teach correctly and smoothly,” and classes are “a great way to learn new stuff.” “Nice teachers and wonderful learning,” sums up a student. “You have to work hard for what you want,” but this small school has plenty of resources and “at the end of the day if you need something just ask someone.” The faculty also “makes sure their students are good and caught up academically so they can succeed.”
Student Body
“Around here it’s like everyone knows everyone,” and indeed, many students knew each other growing up. “We have some fights and things but most of the time it's good here,” says a student. “There are a lot of creative students,” and most students at Taylor “are very energetic” and “are helpful and very nice.” All students, faculty, and staff sign the Life Together Covenant, which is a pledge of shared faith that identifies the expectations for Taylor community living, and residence halls (each with its own traditions) are not divided by class years to promote this unity. Most everyone here is considered “generous and helpful.”
Campus Life
“Life at school is always definitely surprising. You never know what could happen,” says a student. Students hang out in “the Commons and the lunch rooms,” and “students are usually on their phone or doing their work or talking to friends in [the] hallways.” The Student Activities Council sponsors “fun activities, like dances, and sport games,” as well as traditions like the Cardboard Boat Regatta, in which students must make it across Taylor Lake on a boat they crafted using only cardboard, plastic sheets, and duct tape, or Nostalgia Night, when students perform songs from before the graduating class was born. The school band is a popular extracurricular activity, as is attending basketball games, as students “have a lot of school spirit and support our school by going to games and doing fundraisers.”