Tuscan vernacular architecture dominates the 318-acre main campus of Colorado’s flagship university, expressed in sandstone and red tile roofs. The backdrop: the majestic Flatirons. The broader setting, usually sunny Boulder, often lands on lists of the most livable places, and skiing, snowboarding and other outdoor activities are big draws.
“The first few weeks I got here I took up skydiving,” says Aidan Rafferty, a senior from Greenwich, Connecticut, studying aerospace engineering.
Students choose from 150 fields of study, including programs considered among the nation’s best in aerospace engineering, ceramics, geology, physical chemistry, quantum physics and environmental law. Eighteen astronauts have studied or worked here, and the University of Colorado– Boulder faculty have been awarded five Nobel Prize over the past few decades.
It was the “really strong” physics education that kept Boulder native Oak Nelson, a 2016 grad, from accepting offers from Dartmouth College or the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The school draws about 40 percent of its enrollment from outside Colorado, and the student population is approximately 30 percent minority and international.
[Check out other colleges and universities in Colorado.]
Several programs make Colorado’s largest university feel smaller and more welcoming to freshmen, part of an effort to raise the six-year graduation rate from 71 percent to 80 percent by 2020.
More than half of students living on campus are enrolled in 14 themed residential academic programs, or RAPs, and six similar living-and-learning communities. The programs build communities around an interest such as global studies, fine arts, leadership and community service or sustainable design.
For example, students in the humanities-focused Farrand RAP live in Farrand Hall and take a class each semester in which they examine texts, write and learn the research process as they connect with their peers and professor.
“Most of my friends I met in my RAP,” says Daniel Peaslee, a 2016 graduate in film studies from Estes Park, Colorado, who joined the arts and film group.
Another way CU gets students engaged is by giving upperclassmen lots of opportunities to do research. “I got to command a spacecraft in my second year,” says Maggie Williams, a 2016 aerospace engineering graduate from Highlands Ranch, Colorado; the command center for the Kepler spacecraft now surveying the Milky Way for potentially habitable planets is located at CU. “Half of our staff members are students,” says Bill Possel, director of Mission Operations and Data Systems.
But that doesn’t mean students don’t cut loose. “If you’re into the party scene,” notes Ellysse Dick, a 2016 graduate in international affairs and German studies from Rapid City, South Dakota, “there are plenty of things to do.”
Nearby Pearl Street’s restaurants and bars are popular destinations. Although cannabis is legal in Colorado, CU takes a zero-tolerance position in keeping with a smoke-free policy. Students enjoy cheering on their Buffaloes in an array of varsity sports in the Pac-12 Conference. The men’s and women’s ski teams are among the most competitive.
[See which top colleges and universities are in the Centennial State.]
Sustainability is a major focus, with student-run recycling, the nation’s first Division I zero-waste athletics program, and the new Sustainability, Energy and Environment Complex, where a new major in environmental design will be headquartered.
Other points of pride are the school’s entrepreneurial bent and an interdisciplinary approach to learning. At the BioFrontiers Institute, faculty from 10 departments from applied math to the geological sciences are partnering with industry to make their discoveries relevant.
At the Idea Forge, engineering, business and humanities majors design, create and test products tackling societal needs and problems of companies. Some students find support through a summer startup accelerator that ends with “Shark Tank”-like pitches to potential investors.
Colorado College Road Trips:
— University of Denver
— Colorado College
— Colorado School of Mines
This story is excerpted from the U.S. News “Best Colleges 2017” guidebook, which features in-depth articles, rankings and data.
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College Road Trip: University of Colorado–Boulder originally appeared on usnews.com
