I applied to 4 colleges in total but three of them didn’t have the program I am in right now. I was also looking for a school that could give me the chance to keep swimming. I was really into something related to the human body. I didn’t want medicine because I am a swimmer and between practices and school medicine would not be a good idea. Instead of that, I found kinesiology which studies the movement of the human body and it is related to sports. I ended up at Fresno Pacific University because I got a chance to continue my swimming career and also start my college career. Now that I am a junior I have between 16-18 credits. Swimming also helps me to organize my time so I can complete assignments and study and also be able to practice two times a day from Monday to Saturday.
Course Curriculum :
I think that Fresno Pacific University has a good course curriculum. They offer a variety of classes for various majors. They are still lacking on options for Graduate, but for undergraduate, it has a good variety of courses.
Exams :
I am originally from Mexico. To get to America I had to take the SAT and the TOEFL. For the SAT I didn’t get any prep course but I used Khan Academy to study a little bit. With a score of 1130 I was accepted at Fresno Pacific University. I also had to take the TOEFL to prove my proficiency in english and I got a 92 which was sufficient to be accepted.
Placement :
There is a career development center and you get a lot of help to get jobs outside the campus. There are also a lot of workshops for that and you can get help while writing your resume. The school also has a college central webpage where you can look for jobs outside and on campus. The webpage has a great search engine that helps you to find the perfect job for you.
Internship :
My college does offer on-campus jobs. My experience with them are that they are really hard to get one. Sometimes you can stay one whole semester without a job on campus because there is nothing available at the moment. To get a job on campus you have to visit student life and go through a binder with all the jobs available at the moment and then fill out an application with your class schedule. After that, you just have to wait to see if they contact you.
Events :
The events celebrated at FPU are the Thanksgiving Luncheon, which is two days before thanksgiving. There is also an April’s fest which includes all the nationalities that the school have and the students share somethings about their culture. There are also cultural awareness night for international students to share their culture with other students here at FPU.
Fees :
The tuition at FPU is a little bit expensive because it is a Christian private school. The total amount of tuition (including dorms and food) for my major is about 41k a year. The good thing is that FPU offer scholarship to help cover this tuition, there are academic scholarships as well as athletic and talent (music and theatre) scholarships. The academic scholarship depends on your GPA and it goes from 6,000 to 15,000 usd. The athletic and talent scholarship depends on the coach or professor and it can end up covering all your tuition.
Scholarship :
I availed first of an athletic scholarship and an academic one. The academic one I didn’t have to do anything because they just looked at my GPA and they awarded me with one. The athletic one I had to talk with the head coach of the team to see if I had a chance of getting one. That was the whole process, after that, they sent me a package with the scholarship offer and I had to sign it to make it official.
Examination Structure :
Some classes have no exams, some others have quizzes, midterm, and final exams, and other classes only have a midterm and final exams. We get a midterm break of two days without school.
Faculty :
my experience so far with the faculty at this school has been really good. The classes are no bigger than 20 ish students, which makes it easier for the professor to know every student in his class. Professors are available for you at office hours and they normally answer the emails within a day or faster than that. Almost all the Kinesiology staff have a Ph.D. and they all have amazing knowledge in the field.
Hostel :
The on-campus living is convenient for international students or students who live outside Fresno. The campus residency is expensive it is about 2,200 to 2,800 each semester (without a meal plan). When you are junior and senior you can opt to pay a 70 block ($618 per semester) 140 block ($1,103 per semester) or full meal plan ($2,212 per semester). As a freshmen and sophomore, you don’t have an option and you have to have the full meal plan. There are options to live outside the campus but if you are an athlete and have to wake up early for practice it is not ideal.
