Love it or Hate it

Introduction
ASU is truly a ‘Love it or Hate it’ school. There is a lot of people I know who love it here, but then I know a lot of people who are counting down the days till they can transfer. You’ll love it if you’re a party person, looking to pull a decent grade. This school is extremely large and revolves around it’s social life. There are a endless options of clubs, sports, and Greek life. There is a party every night if you can find it. However since it is so large and busy, if you don’t get yourself involved you’ll fade into the background. If you want to go to school and get good grades, maybe get in a few parties under your belt, your going to hate it. Academics are not a top priority here. Your schedule will be dictated by parties, rather than classes. While there are options for the academically minded student, they are greatly outnumbered by the party scene. Also if your not very open and outgoing your going to be pretty lonely. Kids come here thinking they can open their door and there will be a party right outside. While ASU is a party school, the party isn’t going to come look for you. The party scene can be reclusive at times and people aren’t just going to let anyone in their party.

Campus Life and Social Life
Tempe is pretty much ASU. Everything around the campus is catered to and for the students. However if you get further away from Phoenix some areas can be very shady. If you don’t really want to leave campus, you don’t have to, there are fast food places, starbucks, markets, etc. all around. If you have an interest there is probably one of the 500+ clubs that will cater it. At the start of the school year there is a huge event where you can go and view all the clubs. It is so large they have to split the event over two buildings. Also while the Greek life is included in the event, they also have their own separate event where you can go and meet all the chapters. Intramural sports are fairly large and you will have no trouble joining a team or finding a playing partner. The student rec center will be full on most evenings before everyone goes out for the night. While it is large, there is probably going to be a line for the treadmills or waiting people to finished their sets. Campus is split in the middle by a main road with North Campus with most of the old dorms, frat row, and the stadiums. South Campus has all the honors dorms (small/fairly old), and the new larger dorms. Like most school you are required to have a meal plan as a underclassman on campus. Buy the all M&G plan! M&G dollars are dollars you can use at the fast food/starbucks around campus, without having to pay tax. You can also use these for dining halls if you want, while the dining hall meals can only be used in the dining halls. I had the 2 meals a day plan (225 meals) and I end up with still over 100 left at the end of the semester (and that was only b/c our student building burnt down and we were allowed to use our meals in fast food places for a few weeks). If your on North Campus the Devils Diner in PV Main takes M&G all day and meal plans at night. On south campus, the Domino’s next to Cholla apartments takes M&G. As an underclassman you partying will be centered on frat life and apartment parties. You can kind of party in your dorms, but anything more than a few people will be busted. In my dorm the RA’s do round at 10, 12, and 2. It’s best to pre-game in your dorm, then go out. When you hit 21 you will start living on Mill Ave, with all the bars, which is next to campus. Sports are really big here. The stadiums are packed for football, and we’re starting to catch UA in basketball. The crowds are rowdy inside and sometimes your tailgating so hard you may not even make it into the game. Even though it's not that large your best bet is to go Greek to establish yourself with friends. You'll meet a lot of people through that scene, other than from your dorm floor. Advertisement
Academics
Academics take a back seat here. The only school in the nation that lets in a higher percent of kid is UTEP. There is Simpsons episode when during a flood Flanders thanks the lord for casting down the wicked, then upon seeing Homer says, “it looks like Heaven is easier to get into than Arizona State. The only really recognized department is the W.P School of Business. It’s fairly obvious that the school puts a lot of more money into it, over others. The other strong departments are communication and performing arts. However it is truly a hit or miss with professors, no matter your major. Talking to your professors can be hard since we have over 50,000 students. For a lot of the introduction classes you will be talking to TA’s for help. However the workload is really easy if you keep on your deadline and study over the weeks rather than cram. Go to class! Usually the teachers will tell you exactly what they are putting on the test, and some classes will give pop quizzes (which are easy A’s) designed to see if you coming to class. Also teachers will curve grades to have a normal grade distribution. If you lecture is full of kids who’ve been skipping classes all year and have a hangover on finals day, then chances are your grade is going to jump up a bit. It’s a lot better to do your work early and have time to party, then party then pull an all-nighter. The parties aren’t going to disappear here, but your good grades can. Since the party life controls your schedule, you’ll need to try and avoid Friday classes. You should go online and pick out your classes about a week before you can start signing up. Also you’ll want to check on ratemyprofessor.com. Tues/Thurs classes and good professors will go fast, if you wait you’ll be stuck with a hard semester. Since there are so many kids let in, you’ll notice that come second semester there is a lot fewer people around as the kids drop or fail out. This is a very good school to come to if you want to build your grades to transfer.

Student Body
Much of the student body is full of the ’common type’ of student, Bro’s and Bro Hoe’s. A lot of the student body are surfboarding, BMW driving, Cali kids, or wish they were. Guys wear slip on Vans, Famous clothing, have spiked hair, Von Zipper sunglasses, may longboard to class and use the word ‘Bro’ in almost every sentence. Some are douches, some are chill. If you like Brunettes, when you come to ASU start liking blondes. Most of the girls are blonde and maybe a little dizzy and look like tomorrows’ playmates. While the brunettes are well represented as well, the blondes will probably outnumber them 2 to 1. The girls here are all extremely attractive, but are also extremely Hollywood, your not going to find too many girl next door types around. The girls seem very happy with guys. Everyone is really tan and in good shape, which make the SRC so busy. Hook-ups is usually the name of the game here, not too many relationships. Since the school is so big there is a chance that even if your able to remember who you hooked up with last night, you may never see them again. Life is split very clearly over the North and South campuses. The North side is the much friendlier, wilder side and are generally more attractive. You have to deal with worst dorms, but your across the street from the stadiums and frat row. Most dorms on North have someone monitoring at night, searching bags and such. If your going to bring alcohol to your room, do it during the day, when a backpack full of stuff is less suspicious. South campus is the calmer side of campus. You have the newer dorms (except for the old honor dorms, although they are building a brand new Honors dorm and student apartments on South), but less of a party scene. You don’t have a desk in most of the dorms on south, but there are some. However you can usually use a side door from a stairwell to get stuff in. Kids still party, but not quite on the same level. The other good part of south is that your next to the SRC and it’s playing fields. However most kids move off-campus by sophomore year.

In Closing...
Right now isn't exactly the best time to come to ASU. The school is in a sort of transition thanks to our current President. His idea is to make ASU the “Harvard of the southwest..” and that ASU will be a second choice to the Ivies. So he is steadily trying to kill the party scene and the schools party image. The frats are being clamped down on really hard, even eliminating the houses and have them all in a sorts of apartment complex, which I think is to regulate their parties. Also upperclassman have told me the party scene wasn’t as strong as it used to be. However the improvement in academics or it’s reputation won’t be felt for a few years. The president also wants to make ASU have higher selectivity, at the same time increase student population to 90,000 (don’t get how that one works). And since the school is meant to be getting better, the tuition is getting higher. But if ASU does eventually gain in academics down the road your degree could mean a lot more. Also don’t live in Sonora on south campus, no matter what people tell you, it sucks. The dorm in general isn’t all that good, and you are basically living in an entire different zip code than the rest of campus.