Hear Me Out

Campus

One of the main reasons I decided to come to AU (instead of going to NYU or another inner city school) was for its campus. I love the idea that AU is in the most important city in the world (for those of you who say New York City is more important, look where everyone came running when the stock market had issues). But although we're in a huge metro area, AU has tons of open space for vegetation and quads.

 

In fact, American is a designated arboretum, with many different kinds of trees and plants lining the campus. It truly is a beautiful place to live, especially this time of year when the trees are beginning to change color and the temperature is mild.

 

See, people think you can't get the typical "college campus" feel if you decide to study in a big city like Washington, DC. But AU debunks this myth. We're right in the center of NW Washington - literally 5 miles from the White House. Yet you can walk out of your dorm and throw a Frisbee or football around with your friends on the quad.

 

Talk about the best of both worlds.

AU Sports

AU hasn't been a big sports school in the past, but that's changing quickly. We have a ton of amazing sports teams (women's volleyball and lacrosse, men's and women's soccer, and more), but I'm going to focus on two of our most recently rising programs: wrestling and men's basketball.

 

Our wrestling team is improving exponentially each year. Last year, Josh Glen won the national championship! And this year we've got a couple of contenders, like Mike Cannon. Expect to see AU in the news a lot more for our wrestling program. They have an excellent coach in Mark Cody, who recently won the Division I Bob Bubb Coaching Excellence Award. We even made ESPN. They called us "a small school in Northwest Washington, DC."

 

In addition, our men's basketball team is really putting AU in the spotlight nationally. Last year, we won the Patriot League title and advanced to the NCAA tournament for the first time ever! In the first round we played #2 Tennessee and stuck around the whole game (we were within two points in the 4th quarter, I think) before Tennessee finally pulled away. Everyone was pumped for the games last year - we actually had school spirit take over our campus for a few months! But this year, we're expecting even bigger things from our the team. We brought back our quick guards, and our freshmen players from last year have hopefully matured and improved their skills. Maybe this year we'll knock off a big name team like Tennessee or North Carolina. You never know...

 

Anyway, AU isn't known for its sports - yet. But we will be. Our athletics program is growing, and our school spirit is growing right along with it.