JOSH: IUP's size is perfect - large and small at the same time. When I visited large schools, they were too big with too many students. I'd get lost in the crowd. At the same time, my small hometown had a branch campus that was too small, and did not enough program selection. IUP is the perfect size. It's a "little big school" or "big little school" whichever way you want to look at it. Activities to do all the time, enough people to still meet new people every day, but yet I feel like I can make myself known rather than be 1 of 60,000.

SHAUNA: We all get to know our professors really well. A lot of professors do come to IUP because here they are required to teach, you can't have a grad assistant teach the class for you. That is the difference. They are here because they want to teach. They might have wonderful degrees from these great schools, but they wanted to be a teaching professor, not because they wanted to do their research. And that is why they came to IUP - it is an undergraduate-focused college.

CHRYSA: The faculty had students over to their houses for dinner; when you're done with their class, they still talk to you, and they watch out for you, sort of adopt you. At other schools, that don't even remember your name.

JOSH: I had an intro class, and because of size I never though that my prof would know my name. When I pass him in the oak grove, he still stops to have a conversation with me, 'Hi Josh, how are you doing?' I believe he probably knows all the names of everyone in the intro class. It's interesting that the faculty would take that much time to really get to know someone.

CHRYSA: I attended a small and a huge school and found the professors just didn't have the time for us, like the professors weren't there to teach. At the bigger school, most of the professors were there to do their research. But here it's different. It's interesting that if you talk to professors and see why they are teaching here. They could be making more money or maybe teach at a bigger school. A lot of the time you'll find faculty that have been at another university, and they say that they come back because of the students and they want to teach.

JOSH: I think that's the difference - it's not a research university, it's a teaching university. They're not here to work on their doctorate. They're not here to publish their research. The professors are here to teach the students.