|
|||
| hope college > admissions > international students |
|
What Students Say Ventzislav Ivanov  Ventzislav
lvanov '95 had no trouble adjusting when he transferred to Hope College
from the American University in Bulgaria. "The people are not much different
from the people in my country. They have the interests.. same things they
care about. People seem to be the same all over," he says. The people at
Hope with whom lvanov has come in contact seem to the same idea. He was
readily accepted into the Hope community. "It's a nice school and a nice
environment in which you can make friends. The whole atmosphere is friendly," he
says."Plus, Hope is recognized as a small college that offers a good education through a strong faculty, a pretty nice facility in terms of resources for research, and a nice environment in terms of sociable people - a place where I wouldn't feel like a foreigner. And that's what it is, actually. I have quite a few friends here, and I don't feel like I'm regarded as a foreigner," adds Ivanov. He attributes his easy adjustment in part to the college's size. "It's my belief," says lvanov, "that if you go to a small college you can go to professors offices more frequently. You will also have more people with Ph.D.'s teaching classes, while if you go to a bigger school most classes at the undergraduate level will be taught by teaching assistants." He became interested in Hope through Dr. Matthew Fike '82, a F alumnus teaching at Ivanov's former university in Bulgaria. Dr. Fike helped him apply - a level of personal interest in the student that he has also found characteristic of Hope. "The professors here are friendly. They'll help you out with basically everything, from writing papers to explaining things you don't understand," he says. Sometimes I feel like they're more my friends than, the professor, you're the student.'" lvanov does find a sizeable difference in the resources and opportunities available for students here compared to back home. "The whole library at the university was probably smaller than just the reference section here," he says. "Hope is a school which will provide the quality of education needed to work or prepare you well for the graduate level. It has the sufficient prestige, as far as quality of education is concerned, to get into a good grad school. It's a high-quality college."
|
|||