A Guide To the Location of Colby College
This article was written based on the information and opinions presented by Abigail St. Johns in a CollegeVine livestream. You can watch the full livestream for more info.
What’s Covered:
- Where Is Colby Located?
- Food and Art in Waterville
- What Are Some Off-Campus Activities for Students?
- Dorms at Colby
Where Is Colby Located?
Colby College is located in Waterville, Maine, which is a college city of about 16,000 people. Waterville is a former mill town that is now one of the fastest-growing cities in Maine.
There’s been a lot of revitalization efforts to revamp the downtown area and make it more vibrant. Right now, there is an independent movie theater and opera house that puts on concerts and theater productions that Colby students can participate in. There is also a new hotel in the downtown area called Lockwood Hotel and a new sandwich shop going up near the dorms. This means that Waterville is a small yet up-and-coming place.
Across the river from Waterville is Winslow, another city where many students visit after classes or on the weekends. Waterville is a great city to go to college in if you like close-knit communities and don’t want to feel overwhelmed by a large city.
Food and Art in Waterville
Students at Colby are big on experiencing the food scene in Waterville. While the city is small, there are plenty of restaurants and shops to explore. A Colby favorite are the tea rooms downtown, which are great study spots that offer warm tea and coffee for those cold winter days. They have many vegan options, such as chocolate cupcakes and cookies, which are very popular among students. Another favorite is a sandwich shop in the neighboring city of Winslow that offers sandwiches of massive sizes.
Waterville is an incredible town for food but it’s also a great place for art and culture. The Green Block + Studios were recently opened and it features a gallery, exhibit space, and studio space for visiting artists, students, and professors. There are also celebrations that happen throughout the year, such as fireworks on the Fourth of July and a festival that takes place every summer.
What Are Some Off-Campus Activities for Students?
Colby College is right by some great walking and hiking trails that many students go to on the weekends. There is also the Belgrade Lake, only 20 minutes from campus, which has beautiful areas for swimming and hiking. While you can’t swim during the winter, the hiking trails are open year-round and have incredible views. Right next to the lake is a suspension bridge called the Ticonic Footbridge (or locally known as Two Cent Bridge because many years ago it used to cost two cents to cross).
Waterville is a place where you can see and participate in an incredibly impactful community. Colby College is only five minutes from downtown Waterville, so it is an integral part of the area. This is especially true considering the connections Colby has to the Green Block + Studios and Waterville Opera House. To make life easier for the students, Colby College has a shuttle that runs every 15 minutes to and from the dorms to campus. This shuttle is open from very early in the morning until late at night.
Students participate in many community organizations, whether it’s through the Office of Civic Engagement, volunteering organizations, or the Center of Arts and Humanities, which is a center on campus that does a lot of ethnographic research. This research connects students to hands-on learning opportunities with members of the community. You will get to learn about Waterville through the classes you take at Colby, not just by living near downtown or going to eat at its restaurants.
Dorms at Colby
The students at Colby live either on Mayflower Hill or in the dorms downtown. No matter which dorm you live in, there are shuttles to connect students to each part of the campus. There are also living spaces in the Lockwood Hotel for students, so there are plenty of options for students who want to live on campus. Meanwhile, there aren’t many options for students who want to live off-campus in houses or apartments. The city isn’t very large, so housing off-campus is limited.
