UNIGO REVIEW
Braving the winter-quarter weather may not be the hardest part of life at Northwestern University, but it’s certainly one challenge its ambitious, motivated students could do without. However, “
complaining about the cold brings us together,” says one sophomore; in lieu of successful sports uniting the student body at this Big Ten university, “
there's a lot of academic pride,” reports another sophomore. Affectionately dubbed “
Nerdwestern” (and less affectionately said to have “
Ivy envy”) NU students are stereotyped as being so focused on their education that they “
don’t go out, don’t party, aren’t attractive, and don’t have sex.” But in real life, “
it seems as though everyone is a very intelligent, involved, down-to-earth, passionate person,” says a freshman. The campus sits on the edge of Lake Michigan, integrated into the wealthy suburban Evanston community and minutes away from big-city Chicago. “
It is the perfect compromise between bubble school and urban,” writes a freshman.
Academically, NU students are ready for the challenges the rigorous, liberal-arts based curriculum offers them in preparation for their career paths. “
Northwestern is definitely pre-professional, grade-deflated, and prestigious,” says one freshman. Although the focus is on learning for learning’s sake, three of NU’s standout programs—engineering, journalism, and theater—take a practical teaching approaches. Engineering students participate in hands-on projects in labs; journalism students in the Medill school are sent out to find and report stories from downtown Chicago; and theater students gain valuable experience both on stage and behind the scenes. Class size and quality varies between departments, with the most popular majors (like economics, in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences) often hosting the largest lectures (over 300 per class, according to some). But “
as you move up into the 300-level classes, they get tiny and are mainly round-table discussion style,” reports an economics major. Smaller departments give students a chance for greater interaction; according to a physics major, “
There is a lot of discussion going on in the upper-level course. The department is also basically begging you to get involved in research right away.” Lectures are nearly always given by professors, and students say faculty are mostly “
insanely intelligent and know an unbelievable amount about the topics they're teaching.” One distinctive feature of NU academics is the quarter system—instead of two semesters, the academic year is divided up into four equal quarters, each with its own midterm and exam schedule. “
Students complain about…how relentless the quarter system can be in terms of work load,” says one junior, but to others, the quarter system is a highlight. “
Because of the quarter system, we can double major within four years easily or just take a lot of classes for fun,” writes a freshman, and, says a sophomore, “
The quick terms make the students work extremely hard and prepare them for jobs with a great work ethic.”
While 8,000 undergrads represent a fair amount of diversity, the majority of NU students tend to self-divide along North and South campus lines. "
Greeks tend to gravitate towards North campus and into Evanston for the bars," notes a sophomore studying journalism, while "
South campus is the home of theater kids and the like." The culture on either side of the divide is accordingly disparate, says a freshman: “
The culture of North campus is wild and involves lots of drinking and hooking up. The South campus culture is very artsy.” Students tend to come from Illinois, the Midwest, and both coasts, and a sizable number are from upper- and middle-class families. But NU makes an effort to make the student body reflect a variety of different racial, ethnic, religious, and social backgrounds, at least in some respect, and the LGBT population is “
large.” But mixing the two groups academically is easier than socially integrating them. “
The majority of students are friendly with each other, but I feel that most of the different ethnic groups stay in their own groups,” per one sophomore. Overall, NU students characterize themselves as open to diversity and laid-back when it comes to respecting each others’ differences. “
There is definitely an atmosphere of tolerance,” says one student.
Nearly 40 percent of students choose to go Greek, “
but the frats are much tamer than our Big 10 brethren,"according to a freshman. While the house scene can be lively on any given weekend, recent administrative efforts forced a lid on the fun this past fall, to the chagrin of Greeks and non-Greeks alike. "
Social life was kind of limited this past fall with the Dean of Student's absurd raid on the Greek system,” complains a sophomore sorority sister. On Mondays and Thursdays, undergrads head to one of Evanston’s handful of bars for a weekday pick-me-up, although “
sophisticated party-goers opt for downtown action in Chicago,” where they can check out museums, go shopping, eat out, or hit up bars and cultural hot-spots all over the city. With the exception of the unusually successful women’s lacrosse team, Wildcat athletic events are typically hopeless causes, both on the field and in the stands. “
Students wake up bright and early for ‘kegs and eggs’ before Saturday afternoon football games, but many don't make it to the second half,” says a sophomore. During the long-awaited spring and summer months, students thaw out on Lake Michigan’s beaches, which brush right up against campus and provide the perfect backdrop for pickup volleyball games, Frisbee, hiking, sunbathing, and sailing. The student body looks forward to “
go[ing] Berkeley” every May for Dillo Day, a day-long festival full of outdoor activities and a big-name concert, during which “
everyone eats, drinks, and is merry” before the spring quarter ends.
Make no mistake about it—those Chicagoland winters are COLD, with wind chills dipping below zero and snow piling up for days on end. Despite this—and maybe even because of it—Northwestern’s undergrads are proud to be where they are with their fellow students. Says one sophomore: “
Let me put it this way: Stress brings people together. Bad sports teams bring people together. Frigid winters bring people together. Awesome school colors…bring people together. If you came to be challenged, you came to the right place.”