Yesterday was my first class at Triton. I showed up several hours early to just kind of get the feel of the place. I had been there a few times over the summer, but you don’t really get the feel of a college until you spend some time there when students are present.
First impressions:
The campus wasn’t as crowded as I thought it would be. The main campus is pretty small and I thought that would translate to steady streams of students walking from one place to another. But I was really surprised at the small size of the crowds of students and the leisurely atmosphere of the outside area. In the student center, I was able to find an open table even during peak lunchtime hours. It could be that the place is a little more crowded in the evening.
My students were extremely quiet at first, more so than I am used to. My best guess on this is that they were probably a little nervous. Triton has open enrollment which means that alot of the students probably haven’t taken AP classes in high-school. To me that has no reflection on their ability, but they were probably more “out of their element” than my university students.
As I was told, there is a lot of variety in the racial and economic backgrounds of the students. There were a lot more students of Eastern European background than I had thought there would be.
So it goes.
