Are you looking at colleges and wondering if this campus is the right one for you? Or your child? I…read morecame here for work and wanted to give my observations on the campus layout and the area in regards to safety. First off, Roanoke Virginia is a very historic town and the people here are super friendly very inviting and quick to lend a hand when it's needed! The campus is spread out but the buildings are easy to find and labeled well. There are campus maps periodically spread out through the walking paths at the campus itself. There's lots of student interaction on campus I myself got lost looking for the building I was heading to for a conference and stopped someone who quickly pointed me in the right direction. The buildings are clean and updated when it comes to the historic buildings, and lots of new construction buildings on campus as well! As a town, Roanoke is easy to navigate the streets are well maintained and the area is well lit at night. I had zero concern for walking downtown out of my hotel and the quaintness of the entire city is extraordinary.

Began my academic career here and taught for 3 years. A great small liberal arts school with…read morefantastic teachers who will know you... Whether you like it or not. Salem is becoming a better "college" town. Near Roanoke which is great and the Blue Ridge parkway.. Appalachian trail... Tons of outdoors

I have an educational event here every October, and the space is wonderful for our needs. All…read moreclassrooms are equipped with the latest technology, furnishings are contemporary and new, bathrooms are clean and stocked, catering does a fantastic job, there's Wi-Fi, and parking is only $5-6/day. We love coming to this venue and will continue to come back as long as we're in Roanoke.

The best university in the world. (Ok, so I might be a little biased.) The four years I spent here…read morewere the best 4 years of my life! I love this campus, the professors, my fellow students and learned so much about myself going to school here. It's extremely affordable (especially if you are in-state) and has some of the best academic programs in the country. I could have asked for a better place to earn my degree! Go Hokies!

I think you can approach a review of a college in a couple of different ways, as a student most…read moreobviously, maybe also as an employee and/or professor or as a parent. I'm coming at this as merely a visitor. My top-tier chum who literally went to the school of hospitality at VA Tech asked me to accompany her on a campus visit last week, her first time back since her graduation roughly a quarter century ago. She's always spoken very fondly of her time here and just unfortunately hasn't had the opportunity to return until now. Just for context, I went to NYU, which doesn't really have a campus - Washington Square Park is the closest comp to that, but one of the bigger selling points of that school is that NYC is your campus and you're not really cordoned off in your own little world. Pros and cons to both scenarios. I preferred to be dropped in the middle of a chaotic city but I can see the appeal of this type of college living as well. We spent roughly a day here, arriving by car late Tuesday morning and leaving the following day after checking out of The Inn at VA Tech. We were blessed with sunny skies but it was pretty toasty during our visit, in the 90s during the afternoon. For our main tour/walk, we went from The Inn down Perry Street, curving around Stanger Street until we hit the vaunted Drillfield and then visited the Duck Pond. Then we walked up West Campus Drive and down Washington before cutting back into the campus again to see some of her old dorms (I think Newman was one?) before hitting up the University Bookstore and walking into the downtown area for lunch. Especially with the nicer weather, the Drillfield was a great optic - just a gorgeous, lush lawn, and a cool homage (at least in name) to VA Tech's military background. The imposing structure of Burruss Hall was a cool sight right next to it, and right behind a very classy tribute to the VA Tech shooting - we were both wondering as we walked around if we'd see something acknowledging that tragedy from 2007. Initially we thought it was literally just a small kiosk, until turning around and realizing it was a much larger setup with an acknowledgment of each specific victim. My chum graduated several years before that shooting occurred but was obviously/understandably impacted by it in her own way, so that was a nice moment. She was a little disappointed (probably the right word) at how many new buildings had been erected since she'd graduated in 2001. On one hand, that's literally a generation ago so it's not surprising that there have been significant changes in the interim. But it WAS striking how many areas were just flat-out unrecognizable and new to her, particularly in the Perry Street section. I'm assuming that the student population has expanded significantly to accommodate all of the new buildings, but it's just not the same college she left. Not a negative, but probably not a positive either - is what it is. My two cents as a humble outsider is that everything just seems very monotonous - pretty much all of the buildings are constructed of this Hokie Stone, a specific time of rock that's mined nearby, I believe. A couple of buildings composed of that would have been pretty cool; it's got an old school gothic vibe to a certain extent, but after seeing the same building over and over again, I'd politely suggest a little more variety. Again, this school has its roots as a military institute so you definitely got that impression from the architecture as well, but to me it came up short compared to, say, their ACC rival Duke's campus and its buildings, or West Point. Definitely a cool experience to see this, especially through the lens of my top-tier chum and her formative years here. Go Hokies.

Elda Stanco Downey is the founder of Roanoke Spanish LLC and is a former college professor with…read moreover 15 years teaching Spanish language, culture, and literature. She has helped me tremendously improve my Spanish skills (I was one of her students over a four-year span) - not to mention she's an absolute joy to work with. She's upbeat and fun... and, well, a total pro. She (or one of her team members) will hook you up with tutoring, translation, interpretation, any Spanish-English service you might need help with - for adults, for kids, or for the office. :)

Awesome driver instructor, he made my daughter comfortable and was great with her. I feel like she…read morewill be a safe and better driver because of Mr Saker!

Good, quick, easy. My daughters both completed behind the…read morewheel with this company. The instructors were kind, helpful, and thorough. They covered topics I didn't think to cover. 7 days and done! I highly recommend.

I am employed at Virginia Bioinformatics Institute as a contract consultant. I enjoy the work, the…read morepeople and the culture. I hope my contract is renewed or extended and never ends. Visit the VBI website for a view of the amazing research conducted here. The Institute is dedicated to integrated information biology. As a global leader in informatics and analytics for massively interacting biosocial and technical systems, VBI serves science, governance and business to improve human habitat, health and well-being.