In this informal vlog, freshman Natalie Barnes shares her personal experience at Flagler College in St. Augustine, Florida. She outlines the advantages of the school—tiny class sizes that foster personal relationships with professors, a historic downtown location that offers student discounts and walkable access to all campus facilities, an outdoor pool inherited from the campus’s resort past, and uniquely varied dorm rooms (some even with non‑functional fireplaces). She also notes the pleasant climate, frequent encounters with tourists and their dogs, and the college’s focus on the arts. The drawbacks she highlights include crowded campus tours, a dining hall (D‑Hall) with limited food options and odd operating hours, difficult parking in a tourist‑heavy downtown, the absence of a football team and a limited party scene, a heavily skewed female‑to‑male student ratio, and a sorority that lacks national recognition. Natalie concludes by recommending Flagler to prospective students who value a close‑knit academic community and historic setting, while acknowledging it may not suit everyone.
¡Hola!
Hey guys, what's up? It's Natalie Barnes. Welcome to or welcome back to my channel. So today I'm going to do the pros and cons of Flagler College. I am a freshman at Flagler and I love it, but there are some things I wish I knew before coming here. Without explaining too much, let's just get on with the video. I made notes because like I'm so prepared. Okay, so I'm gonna say the pros of Flagler and then I'm gonna say like the cons. So Flagler College is located in St. Augustine, Florida. It is like the most historic place in Florida, I'm pretty sure.
Don't quote me.
Um, what I like about this college is it's very small, so the teachers know you by name. They just, they actually care. I know like some of my friends go to bigger colleges like University of Florida, other big colleges, and they say that their classroom has like 200 kids. I'm lucky enough to have like maybe 15 kids in my class, so it's very easy to ask for help. Like if you're struggling, it's very easy to get one-on-one with the teacher. So another great thing about Flagler College is since it's in St. Augustine, it's actually located in like the downtown area, which is like St. George Street, where the fort is. It's basically walking distance of downtown, and what's great about it is a lot of the places do have discounts for students. So we just have to show our IDs that we go here, and usually we get like a discount off of pizza pizza or like shops or ice cream. Ben Jerry's, they have discounts. Another cool thing about this school is we do have an outside pool. Since Flagler used to be a resort, it had an outside pool, so they kept the pool and now we are allowed to use the pool whenever we want. Wow, I just said pool so many times. And what's great about Flagler is since it's so small Everything is walking distance, so all the buildings, the library, the student center, the mailroom, like everything is walking distance. So it takes me like 5 minutes to get to my classes. If you guys haven't seen my dorm tour, I'm gonna link it right here. There should be like a little tag. But what's really cool is each dorm is completely different in Ponce. So if you're a freshman, I'm pretty sure you have to live— yeah, you have to live on campus unless you're a St. Augustine resident. But yeah, living here is amazing. Each dorm is completely different. So my room, if you guys want to go check it out, just like click over here, or I'll put it in the down box below. So check it out. But every single room is completely different. Some rooms are bigger, some rooms are smaller. Some rooms even have fireplaces that don't work, but like it's still like a built-in fireplace in your dorm. Like, that's crazy. I don't know what other colleges have that, but yeah, that's really cool. Oh, since this is like an outside campus and it's right in the middle of St. Augustine downtown life, we have visitors, tourists basically. Some of them bring their dogs, so usually when you're walking to class there's dogs. We're not allowed to have dogs in our dorm, but like, it's still cool to see people walking their dogs on our campus. And since it's Florida, you know, the weather is mostly hot and just beautiful. Right now I'm pretty sure it's like 72 degrees, so. And once again, Flagler is an art school, so it's an art school. Like, that's pretty cool, you know. Now the cons. So I think there's many cons to every single college, but these are just cons for me, like what I've experienced here. Like, some people don't really mind it, some people do. I'm just gonna say like the cons of Flagler in my perspective.
How do you know what's good for me? That's my opinion!
So number 1, the tours that are offered here. So, so what you can do is you can tour Magillory. Literally, there's usually people in the lobby looking at the beautiful, you know, beautiful building. It's just kind of annoying waking up to go to your class and there's literally like 30 people you don't know in the lobby. Not a fan of that. The next thing is D-Hall. So D-Hall is basically the dining hall. So if you're a freshman, you have to— I'm pretty sure you have to get the dining, like, dining card, I guess. But what you do is you just walk in, you scan it, and then you can have anything to eat that they offer. I'm just a very picky eater, and I don't like the food that D-Hall has. I know I'm not the only one. The food is just not great, but we do have Chick-fil-A, Boar's Head, and Starbucks on campus at the Student Center, so that's cool. The times that D-Hall is open, which is only for students, it's just really weird. Like, they serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but all at weird times. I'm not really a fan of D-Hall. So like I said before, how Flagler's in the heart of St. Augustine, the downtown. One huge problem, I think it's just St. Augustine in general, is parking. It is so hard to find parking. It's like ridiculous. I hate it. But we do have a garage, like a car garage for students for parking. But the FEC building parking lot is kind of far and you just have to walk. But like You're not gonna wanna walk like that whole entire thing at night, because it takes like 15 minutes. It's just not, not good. So since Flagler is an art school, there's no football teams. We have soccer, tennis, golf, I think. We have a lot of sports, but we just don't have a football team. And for me, you guys may know, I was a cheerleader in high school, so football, I love football. Flagler College is not a huge party school. Like, there are some parties, but like not a lot, which is fine for me because like I don't party that much. Yeah, it's not really a party school at all. So the boy-to-girl ratio is completely off. Like, there's way more girls than there are guys. It's just like really off balance. Like, there's so many more girls here than guys. I don't know why. So the last little con I have was going into the school, I thought that they had like a Flagler sorority. Like, I know they have, they have a frat, but I used to think that they had a sorority for girls to join like colleges do. But they do have a sorority, but it's just not nationally recognized, I guess. But they still do like littles and bigs, and I don't want to say like it's not a real thing, but it's like not. Thank you guys so much for watching my video. Those were all the pros I have and cons I have for Flagler.
Ooh!
Um, I definitely love my college so much. It's definitely not for everyone. If you guys are thinking about applying to Flagler, I highly recommend it. It's a really cool school. I love being here. I love being a freshman. I love the teachers and I love the campus. So definitely apply, see if you get in. Thank you guys so much for watching. Don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe. And check out my other college videos in the down box below. So definitely go check that out. I will see you guys next week.
Bye!
Oh, and another thing, I'm pretty sure I'm posting Mondays and Fridays now, so that's gonna be fun. But yeah, thank you guys so much for watching. Bye!
