my experience attending st. john's college in annapolis, md

I've officially been out of college for longer than I was in... I've been feeling nostalgic about my Johnnie days and memories, and wanted to make a video to help anyone who is thinking about attending SJC or wants more information. If you have questions please leave them below and I will answer them, or if there are a lot I'll make a follow-up Q&A!
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[@ladyoftheflowers9781]

Ha! I'm over a decade out and just got this video in my feed! Being an SJC alum is a REALLY interesting experience. The program is at once the most useful and the most useless accomplishment. The few people who might understand it are few and far in between. My recommendation: do the program and study specialized subjects on the side or over the Summers. Know what your ideal vocation is so that you can be prepared upon graduation!

[@dlotable]

Thanks for the retrospective talk!

[@spydurmonkee95]

I found your video randomly when I was doing KZbin searches for different colleges and fell in love with St. John’s so much so that I applied and got my acceptance letter yesterday!! Your video was so helpful and so detailed and I hope it finds future perspective Johnnie’s! ❤

[@sarahlynnirving]

Omg this truly warms my heart! Congrats on your acceptance 🧡🖤

[@spydurmonkee95]

@@sarahlynnirving just went to an admitted students event, committed and paid my deposit! This video seriously changed my life and I owe it all to you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!!!!!

[@sarahlynnirving]

@@spydurmonkee95 you have no idea how delighted I am by this 🧡🖤 Congratulations!

[@sofiam3347]

im a senior in high school applying to saint john's. this was really helpful, thanks!!

[@rapgoddessboxturtle]

As a prospective student this was super helpful. Thank you so much!!

[@sarahlynnirving]

Thanks for watching! Good luck on your journey 🧡🖤

[@hilarymeyer4702]

Headed to the Annapolis summer academy program, so glad to see such an in depth video about the school :)

[@sarahlynnirving]

Have a great time! Summer Academy is so much fun 😍

[@lizzypicardi]

Hi Sarah, found you on Reddit. Love your channel!

[@sarahlynnirving]

Thank you so much!

[@lizzypicardi]

@@sarahlynnirving You got it!

[@RealFearstoryline]

Thank you for sharing

[@cheerio3847]

Long ago I lived in downtown Annapolis, so it was fun to get info on what St. Johns is like as a student vs local resident gossip! One of my neighbors was friends with a tutor there and I mainly recall that he told her that St. Johns teaches students how to think and analyze, how to question, and how to work cooperatively. I always used to wish that I had heard about St. Johns when I was in HS and it sounded like a wonderful program. I've long felt that specific degrees are often overrated. Few end up working long term in their actual degree, unless it is something extremely specific. I've even known engineering students who ended up NOT doing engineering, BSRN who ended up working in database development, bacteriologist in corporate real estate etc. Any extra details needed on top of a good classical education can be gotten from a few books or videos. Marketing for dummies type stuff - quick read and off to start at an entry level position. Most things really need to be learned on the job anyways or in a grad program.

[@crapshooter]

You were my summer academy RA! Glad you're well! My update for you is now there's a designated smoking section, and we're supposed to call it the "Grassy Knoll." Good imagery, right?

[@sarahlynnirving]

That's fucking incredible. I remember you from Summer Academy! Hope you're doing really well ❤️

[@MrJaytheking]

It’s good to know that St John’s is a worldwide college name

[@cadencecachola4637]

Yes! Thank you for making this! I just got my acceptance package (a whole box with Homer's Iliad and so much creativity) and I needed a splash of the truth about St. John's. What is the dating life like? I want to be an Orthodontist so how would my major requirements tie in with the unique St.Johns curriculum? Does campus get boring? Is it easy to get off of campus and do things in the surrounding towns?

[@sarahlynnirving]

Hi there! Thanks for watching, and congrats on your acceptance 😊 I talked about dating a little bit in this video, I think the main thing to think about is how small the school is and anyone you date or hook up with will be around on the tiny campus for years to come so choose wisely. I know many beautiful Johnnie couples who couldn't be happier. It's definitely pretty easy to go off campus and do other things whether that's in Annapolis, DC, Baltimore, or further out like NYC. There's a shuttle that will take you to the metro and from there you can connect to other transit like Amtrak, buses, etc. As for your desire to become an orthodontist, I really believe the way of learning and thinking taught at SJC benefits people in any career path but there definitely aren't any classes that would specifically address orthodontics. Good luck as you make your college decision!

[@juliagonzales-manton1412]

Thanks for making this video, it was really helpful. My son is a senior in high school and he just got accepted to St. John's for the fall semester. He really fell in love with the school when he visited the Annapolis campus, but he's a little nervous about how intense the program is. How much reading is there a night/week and are you writing essays and papers all the time? Thank you!

[@sarahlynnirving]

Thank you for watching, I'm glad it was helpful! St. John's is definitely a rigorous program and you need to stay on top of your reading. I would expect to be reading most days, and writing a few papers per semester (around 1-2 per course). That being said I worked almost full time in addition to attending school and it was tough but I made it work! If he fell in love with it especially after visiting in real life, it very well may be the right place. SJC is very self selecting and the people who want to be there will do well. Best of luck as he navigates this decision!

[@createconsiderconnect3356]

Wow, I have never heard of this college nor have I heard of that school model. I’m just watching to be watching though & I was pleasantly surprised how much I learned about an entire world I didn’t know existed. I have a Masters of Science in Speech Language Pathology. I just assumed all colleges/universities all worked towards a specific degree with endless choices of classes to choose from. Never heard a model that didn’t require tests/assignments/quizzes etc…My program was extremely competitive. The year I applied there were 175 students that applied & only 23 were accepted (thankfully I was one of those who got accepted). Our masters program was extremely rigid due to it being a medical science (some SLP programs only allow for the non-medical focus that works in public schools however ours was very heavy medical with a lot NICU, Cancer, Stroke, swallowing disorders, etc..focus) I carried 12-15 hours of course work while seeing a 40 hour week of patients in my internships. It was required so there wasn’t an opportunity to earn money during the program which was a deal breaker for some. I’m so very lucky to have been a part of the program though! I’ll stop rambling, just typing any thoughts that come to mind at how completely opposite out experiences were. You did an excellent job explaining in details that I think people looking into it will find very helpful. I think we see a whole different side to you that’s more confident when you are talking about things you’re passionate about. Confidence looks great on you!! Oh I’m curious about your comment about being a part of the Queer community. Do you have a video expanding on that available for me to watch to learn more?

[@sarahlynnirving]

Thanks so much for watching and sharing your experience! ✨

[@user-lh2ly6nf1r]

As an international prospie, the stuff about SA was kinda disconcerting. Is there any place where they talk about the extent of this problem at SJC specifically?

[@sarahlynnirving]

SJC, like most colleges, does not like to openly discuss their problems with SA. The public safety office does have to make an annual report about crime statistics to the state though, I believe it's called the Clery Report or something similar to that.

[@MN-ng1ws]

Does st john have graduate degree and how is that, is it like undergraduate degree and you read great books or its diffrent. I am international student and i wish to attend in master.

[@sarahlynnirving]

SJC does have a graduate program that is somewhat similar to the undergrad program. I never did that program so unfortunately I don't know too much about the details!

[@politeia1999]

Great video, Sarah! Thanks for posting it. I'm also an alum and it was really cool to hear your take on things I experienced too. As for the question of students of color, I think it varies from year to year, but I gather there's typically a lot of international students on campus, primarily from Asia and Africa. They are people of color. In some years it is as high as 25%. There's not always a lot of African-American students -- it can vary from 2-4% to as much as 6-7% (which is still a little below the population percentage in the country as a whole). In real numbers, that means out of a student body of ~400, there may be as few as 10-15 African American students on campus to as many as 25-30. So, yes, the student body is predominantly white, but including all the various PoC groups, it may not be disproportionately so. Of course, for kids from PoC communities, even though they may not technically be under-represented every year, they will still be living in a predominantly white enclave which may not be what they're used to, and I'm sure this can feel disorienting or even disconcerting sometimes. For me, the most important thing, after making sure everyone feels welcome on campus, is the contribution the students who aren't from the white American middle class make to the college experience. After all, it would be easy to assume that a great books curriculum speaks primarily to the predominant ethnic group. But this could not be further from the truth. Even though the readings mainly come from Europe, North Africa and the Near East, they seem to come alive most when read from perspectives not narrowly confined to those regions. For example, kids from mainland China arrive not sharing American ideas about freedom and happiness, and may even suspect that we don't really know what those ideas really mean. The thing is, they're not entirely wrong about this, though they commonly change their own views even after only one semester. But because they are part of the seminar conversation, the discussion can't begin with easy suburban assumptions about what freedom (for example) means. Even these ideas must be investigated in ways a seminar might not if there weren't any people outside the predominant group in it.

[@blahglklsk3051]

What did you major in?

[@sarahlynnirving]

St. John's doesn't have majors, we have one program of study that everyone at the college does in common called the Great Books Program

[@darbiefucks]

@@sarahlynnirvingin other words, bullshit. She majored in bullshit.

[@kamuikatsura768]

How much student loan debt do you have after attending? My biggest worry.

[@sarahlynnirving]

I took out a little over 20k in student loans and it's now all paid off. I started making payments during my freshman year. Since I attended they reduced the tuition cost significantly.

[@kamuikatsura768]

Thanks for the quick reply. It gives me hope. Also btw your glasses are very cute where’d you get them?

[@sarahlynnirving]

@@kamuikatsura768 they're from Warby Parker! The style is called Aniyah 😊

[@neomatrix4412]

how much student loans for 1/4 years ?

[@sarahlynnirving]

It completely depends on your aid package. The tuition also dropped dramatically since I attended. After generous scholarships I had about 25k in loans total for 4 years.

[@neomatrix4412]

@@sarahlynnirving only 25k? so what careers and salary $

[@sarahlynnirving]

@@neomatrix4412 I work in the luxury beauty industry making a good salary 😊 Johnnies go on to a huge variety of career paths, I suggest talking with the Career Office for the most updated insights!

[@neomatrix4412]

@@sarahlynnirving favorite books ?

[@sarahlynnirving]

@@neomatrix4412 my favorite program books tbh are probably the ones I wrote my annual essays on each year! Plato's Phaedo, Dante's Divine Comedy, Milton's Paradise Lost, and Shakespeare's Macbeth. I also loved reading the Pensees by Pascal, Fear and Trembling by Kierkegaard, The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir, and my junior precept on The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt. Plus all the Greek plays and Shakespeare!

[@keepme5225]

I’ve thought about attending Santa Fe really seriously, but I’m struggling with actually doing it because I don’t know what is going to happen to me afterward. Liberal Arts Colleges are crazy expensive. The idea that I can pay a competitive state school’s total tuition costs per year for four years to talk with a bunch of 18-23 years olds is ridiculous sounding. Like you, I didn’t come from money so that has to be measured to some degree properly, because if it’s not I’m spending multiples for multiples less. That said I think I’d be a rock star student there, better than most schools, because in the time I spent trying to figure life out I’ve become an enemy to the systemization and pseudo intellectualization that occurs in standardized institutions like traditional schools. Additionally I’ve found old wisdom to be largely misunderstood in the way that fart sniffing atheists fancy themselves as they dismiss centuries of simple and practical insight, but again I’m worried about security. Without the ability to take care of myself irrespective of economic bureaucracies and accreditation check boxes has me very anxious. The benefit of a stem education is that you don’t need anyone’s permission to act, and the only barrier is a $200 laptop that you can use to surprise the world and cash in on your projects when the time and circumstances are ripe, or when you have a project that isn’t ripe but it’s deployable enough to pull you out of the fire. A liberal arts education is so valuable if you use it to test out how well these thinkers thought instead of collecting like data and Pokémon cards.