On Grants to India, Rough Winters

Introduction
Winters are rough. I mean, it’s kind of hard to get up for class in the morning and go, but I mean, you get through it and it’s totally worth it just fall and spring wise.

I’d have to say there isn’t a typical NWU student. I think there’s actually a lot of different groups at NWU just like very multi-faceted, very diverse in its ways just because, I mean, I’m personally part of Greek Life and I could say there’s a typical student that involved in the sororities and fraternities.

The person that’s involved in the arts and the theatre and I mean, there are people that overlap and are a part of both world but I wouldn’t say there’s a typical student at this school.

I used to be Pre-med, kind of going for that doctor dream, but after taking a few classes, I became an anthropology major, with a Biological concentration. The classes are actually really interesting. You just study human behavior and things like that and my career goals are basically to go into public health and work with people.

Campus Life and Social Life
Classes aren’t that tough actually. They’re very interesting and in Anthropology, since the department is pretty small still, the classes are very small. You get a lot of individual attention. And you get to study and research a lot of what your interests are, which makes it much better than being pre-med.

I know you can apply for research grants through the school and I heard they’re relatively easy to get. For the summer, you can get up to $3,000, and I know for the school year, you can get up to $1,000 and you just have to apply. Basically, you propose your idea, what you want to research. You have an advisor and they work with you like my advisor had been with me every step of the way. Hopefully I’ll get the grant, we’ll see. Advertisement
Academics
I’ll be going to India to do something and it’s been a relatively simple process.When I was Pre-Med: No attention what-so-ever from the professors actually. This school is a very research-based school. And so a lot of them are busy with their work and things like that so you pretty much are depending on your TA in a lot of your science classes. As opposed to Anthropology, though, the TA’s are a lot more—seem to be a lot more considerate, a little more focused on their students and things like that. Working with them because while they do have their own graduate work to focus on, I guess the pressures on them are not as demanding.

Student Body
I actually love Greek life. I’ve been in the sororities for like 3 years now. I wouldn’t say it’s the stereotypical sorority life like it is on most colleges, but it kind of just provides like a lot of people who are like you, a lot of people while are at the same time like you, have a lot of interests of their own. You get to see a lot more, you’re exposed to a lot more. You do have that social benefit of course.

I actually wanted to go study abroad, but with pre-med I couldn’t do it. So I’ve created a program for myself, well it’s actually an internship with World Health Organization in India. I’m going to be working with their regional director for Children’s Public Health Issues.
I’m going to be researching the vulnerability of adolescents basically in India, especially with the AIDS crisis. Because it’s a relatively new, but a very prominent disease in India. And I’m just going to be collecting data researching that stuff and talking to children about their experiences.

The career office has been pretty helpful with me—has been pretty helpful in the fact that they’ll give me a lot of suggestions, they have a lot of knowledge and things like that, but they haven’t been very helpful in helping me finish off…the later end of the process.

In Closing...
Initially, the experience was rough, but I think that was just the adjustment phase into NWU, but overall I’ve had a pretty good time. It’s flown by. Advice I’d give to anyone coming here: don’t miss out on any opportunity or be too lazy to take advantage of something.

There’s downtown, which is a huge advantage. There’s so much life at the campus and then like 1/2 an hour away from you is one of the biggest cities in the country and it’s incredible. I’d say it’s a very relaxed environment, like Evanston itself. Being from NY, I’m from the suburbs so it’s probably a little more happening than Long Island. Evanston, I like it. It’s like a very college-oriented town like it’s been kind of oriented towards us.