What Students Really Say About Farmington


What is the Psychology major like at Farmington?
General Psychology was a pretty big class but Abnormal Psychology was small. I’m thinking of getting into the field of counseling in a school, so it helps to have experiences from an educator’s point of view. There are two ways to be a counselor — be a teacher first or to go right into it. I’m planning to head right into it.

How did you come to choose Psychology as a major?
I was in the Upward Bound Program [a national program that provides high school students with pre-college support] for three years and that inspired me a lot. I had good school counselors and they seemed happy and fulfilled in their jobs. I substituted in the junior high this past year in a special education class room. It was a lot of fun. The kids are still in a malleable age, where you can still affect them.

It’s interesting you’ve chosen junior high. We tend to ignore that portion of the population.
Yeah, junior high school is hard and kids at that age can be so catty and mean. A lot of people had really bad experiences in junior high, so they just want to stay away from it altogether. I’d like to make those experiences better. I’d just like to be that inspirational adult who kids are able to relate to.

What is a strength of the Psychology program at Farmington?
I think a strength from the college in general is that UMF is small enough that you get focused attention. There aren’t many people in my Psychology classes and the professors are nice and know your name and face. The teaching style here is more focused to each individual because the classes are so small. There’s a lot of one-on-one interaction. You can ask questions in class and not feel intimidated like you might if you were in class with a large group of people.

What are the Psychology classes like?
Most are lecture style. But in my Social Psychology class, we’ve done a lot of group study projects, which has been interesting because we never did that in high school or my first year at UMF. We did some in-class writing and a lot of experiments in the classroom, testing our opinions and seeing how they relate.

What has been your favorite class or a class that opened your eyes to a new genre of things?
First seminar, I took Modern Times with Steve Pane [Associate Professor of Music], Sarah [Maline, Associate Professor of Art History] and Scott Erb [Associate Professor of Political Science]. The class looked at World War I through the music, art and politics. It was an interesting class but the work load was tough — 10 pages of journals a week, referring to the books we read. Plus, there was a lot of required reading, and the books were long. A lot of people said it would be the hardest class I’d ever have at UMF, but it taught me how to succeed in college and how to do well. My second favorite class was Abnormal Psychology.

Tell me more about your Abnormal Psychology class.
It wasn’t a general requirement class, and I wasn’t sure if I’d be successful in it, but I was. We studied mental diseases like schizophrenia and the other aspects of Psychology.

Do you get to do any hands-on learning?
I know UMF offered a program in Autism over the summer. My Psychology professor would take students to a mental hospital and they’d stay there for a few days to get the feel of it. There are always opportunities.

So, what brought you to UMF?
There wasn’t one main thing. I visited the campus, liked the feel and felt like I belonged here. I knew I could succeed here. It wasn’t a conscious thing, like knowing my major would be here, but more about the variety of classes and a variety of opportunities. It’s like home in that there aren’t a lot of distractions and there’s a lot of room to focus on academics. I liked the people and the friendliness and the environment when I came to Accepted Student Day.

What do you do for fun here?
Some people might think it’s a small town and will be boring but there are things to do. I go to the movies, Wal-Mart trips, Reny’s shopping trips downtown. Mostly, I hang out with friends. Farmington is a lot different from other small towns because there are just so many people my age.

Are you in any student clubs?
Yes. I’m in Soul Expression, the a cappella group; and the Monteverdi Chorus. I only have two nights off a week! I’m really busy but I like it. Homework is tough and I stay up late a lot. But I like being busy — it makes me feel like I'm not wasting time.

Would you recommend Farmington to somebody from your hometown?
Oh yeah — and I have. There are a few people here from my hometown here this year. Now that I’ve been at Farmington a while, I appreciate things here more, the quiet and the learning opportunities. There are just more opportunities here. The thing about Farmington, though, is how friendly every one is.