By Zoe Pierre Louis and Jada Profit, 10th graders at Norwalk High School
We arrived at the pristine Old Dominion University campus, nestled on 337 acres of land, of which the main campus covers 250 acres. The modern and historic buildings provided the welcoming feeling we were not expecting. Our tour guide, Noah, greeted us and was determined to give us a meaningful experience.
Old Dominion University is a public Research Institution located in Norfolk, Virginia. It was established in 1930 as an extension of the College of William and Mary.
This is the third school we visited on the tour, and it is the most diverse. Last year, more than 23,000 students enrolled, including more than 18,500 undergraduates, 600 international students, and nearly 5,000 graduate students from 99 countries.
Old Dominion University research teams generate $88 million in annual funding through more than 400 ongoing projects supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Health, the Department of Energy, and the Department of Defense.
The ODU Monarchs is a NCAA Division 1 university offering basketball, baseball, swimming, football, golf, sailing, soccer, tennis, lacrosse, rowing, field hockey, and volleyball. Sports is a huge part of campus life, and students show pride in ODU.
Old Dominion has a substantial endowment that will ensure that the university stays financially healthy in the future. We felt this was a predominantly white institution even though the Divine Nine (Black sororities and fraternities) are represented on campus.
Norfolk is a port city, and the region has one of the largest concentrations of armed forces in the United States. Military members can access the school resources of 175 undergraduate and graduate programs from seven colleges and three schools through online classes. Students on campus have access to over 300 student organizations.
We felt that ODU provided a wonderful representation of a large school. Its open campus made us feel comfortable navigating our way, and many of us marked ODU as a school to pursue.
