Northwestern University Top Questions

What do you consider the worst thing about your school? Why?

Claire

I really enjoyed my school, I don't have any complaints. I got everything that I wanted.

Alan

Although I would not consider this an assuredly negative aspect of Northwestern, the academic demand on students has been known to impact the culture and atmosphere greatly. Fellow classmates and I have often felt that the academic rigor is beneficial in that it consistently challenges us to work harder; however, it also leads to difficulty in balancing school and personal life. Nonetheless, I do understand that my experience here will ultimately allow me to find success in my professional career.

Sara

The worst thing about Northwestern is the lack of interracial and interfaith interaction among students. Students belonging to a certain ethnic, religious, or cultural group tend to hang out only with students who are similar to themselves and don't give different students a chance. Again, there is a large amount of diversity in the students that Northwestern accepts, but it is up to the students themselves to be tolerant and open to being friends with people who are completely different from themselves. The administration does nothing to promote this unchanging mentality.

Margaret

For some of my science classes, I felt the professors cared more about their research than teaching.

Isaac

There are lots of kids on this campus who want to make it a more ecofriendly place to go to school, unfortunately the administration has been resistent to change, but luckily we got a new president who is really pro sustainibility, hopefully he will help us make it a greener place to go to school.

Marisol

The weather, the rigorous coursework, and the emphasis on Greek life are three of the worst things about this school. Evanston gets extremely cold and students can get depressed because of it. The school is very challenging and if you don't put effort into schoolwork it will show. Greek life here is almost too overwhelming.

Danielle

The weather is absolutely awful!

Frederick

It is extremely denominational.

Chengchun

closing over breaks!!!

Alex

Weather because it makes it difficult to get to class becase it affects your mood.

Jane

It's really expensive and sometimes i don't think the education or quality of life I get is worth how much I pay.

Zhuoyin

The weather gets pretty brutal in the winter. There are a lot of people who are very self-absorbed because of a pampered upbringing.

Ben

The school tends to be polarized by the north and south campus stereotypes and tendencies. The north campus students tend to be mostly science or economics students, while south campus is very artsy. The two different student populations seem to be seperate and different in how they interact.

Matthew

Funding for studeng groups is distributed on a highly uneven basis, where millions of dollars are allocated to a handful of groups, and the remaining student organizations get from 500-2000 a year.

Carol

Its hard sometimes to meet people because there are soo many people. Once you fall into a click its difficult to get out of it.

Jillian

Money. Very costly

Mykell

It's too hard.

Sean

The science fields are cut throat. Don't expect to make new friends in class. If you're not already friends with someone from in one of your classes, don't even bother asking for help. 90{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} of the time people will mislead or deny you help in hopes that you will lower the curve. Things are awful until senior year, when the curve plays less of a role in class. During senior year, people tend to be more friendly.

Jose

Perhaps some of the students at this school have not been beaten up by life too much. The competitiveness is good, but the greed is the worst.

Carla

Because most people are smart and at the top of their classes in high school, everyone overachieves. Everyone wants to kills themselves by doing everything they can at the same time to prove their abilities. No one just sits back and does nothing for once.

Sally

Professors sometimes expect too much of students and it causes a lot of unecessary stress.

Jennifer

I guess the worst thing I would have to say is that there is just so much going on. There are so many student groups, and activites taking place all the time that you can't possibly be in all of them, and attend all of them. Sometimes I wish I can do everything, but that isn't always possible. I wouldn't change this fact though, because I like having the opportunity to do pretty much anything I want whenever I want.

Sara

Lots of stress and pressure.

Alex

Lack of openness to new ideas, anti-intellectualism and not that much diversity