I transferred to Saint Leo University during my sophomore year, from a different college. I have since transferred out of Saint Leo due to the fact that my degree program, international hospitality has been discontinued by the university.
The good: There is none.
The bad: Be ready with your bucket of popcorn to read this.
Overall, the campus is pretty. It was maintained well. One of the things that got me upset was that the mowers would come at 6am to mow the grass, while I was trying to sleep.
Dorms: The apartment I was in was very nice. It came with a private bedroom for 4 people, 2 bathrooms, and a large living room for all 4. It came with a full size fridge and microwave. I had to switch to a very similar room in-between semesters because I had a horrible roommate situation. The Res Life department was hard to come by when it came to roommate situations, as in the fall 2022 semester, they were at 100% capacity for all dorms. I was trying to switch out earlier, but it didn't work out until the start of the spring semester to move into the new room. The old room also flooded. We never found the source of where the water came from. We never got housekeeping to come because it was on a Saturday when it happened. The carpet cleaner didn't come until very late. It was a messed up day that day.
Food: RUN AWAY!!! It is HORRIBLE!!! There was only 3, supposed to be 4, dining options on the campus. There was the dining hall, a market, and a coffee shop. There was supposed to be a wellness center cafe, but that closed a month after the fall started due to no staffing. There has been no talk with that cafe re-opening for the next school year. The food was better during the hours of lunch, during the week, only. The hours on the weekend were terrible, as they closed the dining hall at 6pm. I found myself ordering delivery through third-party services every weekend due to the fact that I was starving at 7pm if I went to the dining hall at 4:30pm. Not good at all for the students staying on campus. Please keep in mind that if you live in a dorm that does NOT have a full kitchen, you are REQUIRED to be on the top tier meal plan. It was the unlimited but they have switched it to the 19 meal plan.
Events: Saint Leo had events going on their campus daily during the week, but not on the weekend. I found myself extremely bored on the weekends as there was nothing to do. The only time they had something going on the weekend was fall family festival and the open houses they had. I didn't have a car, but was told that things to do was up to a 30 minute drive each time as Saint Leo is in the middle of nowhere. It was very hard to find something to do on the weekends.
Classes: I had some really good professors and some horrible professors. I had a professor fail me for a class because I was sick with the flu during an exam, and did not let me make it up. I also had a professor that did not use the D2L platform correctly, making it hard to understand what assignments were due. If you are struggling with a class, I found myself either at the tutoring center or at the library studying with other classmates to understand the materials. Classes are not easy, they make you work hard. Please use RateMyProfessor when finding a professor for your classes. Also, please go to your academic advisor instead of the student success coaches because you will wait up to 3 hours to meet with a coach while you can just walk up to your academic advisor to talk to them, like registering for classes for a future semester.
Others: All of the other departments were fine to deal with. Mail Room was very easy to work with. Saint Leo does have Greek Life, but they are always promoting their groups. I was not into Greek Life.
Please keep in mind that Saint Leo is going through a lot of financial uncertainty at the moment. They had to make an announcement back in February that laid off 111 positions, discontinued 3 degree programs, discontinued 6 sport teams (cross country, track & field, and swimming), and some other things. The school is very broke, and I feel like new students going into the school are going in with high expectations, but it will not be what they are expecting. I am afraid for the new students as I do not want them to deal with what I am doing.
Well, that was it. I am currently in the process of finding a different college. I do wish that people will read this to make sure do you really want to go to Saint Leo as your college of choice.
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