Waaay Better Than Detroit

Introduction
I think I chose the school because of the city. I live outside of Detroit so I don’t really have a city - you only go there if you want to get shot - so Chicago, being one of the 3 biggest cities in the country was kind of appealing. And this is kind of suburban. It’s not right in the heart of the city.

The typical NWU student is relatively responsible. I mean everyone here is pretty smart, or they wouldn’t have gotten in here, but a lot of people overworked themselves in high school and so have kind of given up on working and then you’ve got the other people who didn’t overwork themselves and are trying to get into law school or Med School or something like that. But laidback enough; I mean, we’re not an Ivy school. So it’s not too intense.

Greek life here is huge, it’s like 38-40% of the campus is Greek. So it’s pretty big, pretty eclectic, though. It’s pretty non-competitive because it’s so huge. I think last summer, 2 of our sororities were on Trading Spaces.

I joined because it is kind of the social life on campus. If you want to have a social life, it’s kind of easy. It’s an easy in. There are date parties and formals downtown and it’s probably the best way to get into the social life on campus without having to do too much work.

I play club soccer. I came here to play varsity soccer, but then just decided I didn’t want to do D-1 athletics, so I play club soccer and that’s not quite as intense, but it’s a lot of fun. The girls are great to play with.

Campus Life and Social Life
I do a lot of student theatre. There’s almost too much student theatre on campus because the theatre program here is so huge.

We are a Big 10 school, even though people tend to forget about us because we’re the small private Big 10 School. But people tend to get excited when football season rolls around and even though we’re not the best team in the world, we did have a couple of big upsets last year though: Ohio State—after we upset them I think people said it was the first night on campus that they ever felt they were really at a college, really at a state school kind of feel.

People were just all over the streets until like 7 in the morning. So people do tend to get behind it, I mean, why not. It’s a Big 10 School so all the other schools are excited so we try to be too.

The study abroad programs people tend to like here, a good bit. I’m a theatre major so I can’t go abroad during the year in a foreign language speaking country so I’m going abroad this summer to Verona, Italy. Through NWU. But NWU does tend to provide pretty good programs for its students in a lot of places. Prague is a big one, people like to go to. People have a good time there.

They told me when I came here that NWU had the #1non-conservatory theatre program in the nation. But it’s pretty intense and the theatre majors are really kind of passionate about what they do. And people who aren’t involved in theatre tend to get involved in theatre on campus because there is so much of it the theatre majors can’t possibly make up all of what we do. But you find a lot of really talented people and it’s really good for networking in terms of after college, the people that you meet here are good contacts later in life.

Zach Braff, I think he wrote and directed Garden State and the acted in it as well, is a recent alum of NWU. I think he was in RTF, Radio, Television and Film Major. And he actually came to campus or is coming to Campus today, think to do a screening of Garden State and talk about his experience at NWU and then after getting into the business.
But a lot of people do think it’s pretty hard. It’s a good school. It’s NWU, so you don’t come here if you’re not willing to do the work and put in the time. Some people live in the live in the library, some people I don’t think ever stepped foot in the library. Advertisement
Academics
North campus is a lot more social than South campus. Just stereotypically and I think, actually, if you want to have a social life you freshman year to live on North campus. Which I did and loved it and would definitely recommend living in Bob or McCulloch Halls or Elder, even. But if you want to have the more social dorm on South campus it’s probably Allison hall, which is the biggest one on South campus. South campus tends to be a little more reserved and quieter people tend to stay in their dorms.

Student Body
Going out at NWU is a little weird because we kind of have a strange schedule in terms of when people tend to go out. Monday, Thursday and Saturday are kind of the big nights to go out at NWU.

Monday nights people tend to go to The Keg in Evanston. It’s just a local bar right down the street, which is kind of all right, but if you go there on other nights you’re going to find a lot of shady townies. But Monday nights tends to be a lot of colleges students. And then Thursdays people tend to hit up the Marktwo Lounge, which is just outside of Evanston. We call it The Deuce affectionately, but again, if you go there on another night, you’re going to find a lot of sketchy people. You got to know the nights that students go there. Saturday nights people go to House parties or frat parties or people’s apartments. A lot of people go downtown. On the Fridays, the off-nights to bars like High Tops and La Passage and places like that in Chicago. So it’s nice to have the city nearby. You get tired of The Deuce and The Keg, pretty fast.

In Closing...
The Rock is kind of a tradition for NWU students. I think if was a gift to the class of 1902 and it was originally a big fountain in the middle of the plaza, but the pipes burst and it cracked down the middle and they kind of pushed it over to the side and it just kind of became our rock that students in good weather tend to re-paint about every 24 hours and they paint advertisements for philanthropy and sororities and sports teams and like happy birthday to my roommate and everything.

And all you have to do is guard the rock for 24 hours before you paint it. It’s kind of like a right of passage for NWU students. They just like to do it by the time they graduate. In winter, people will set up tents out here and spend the night and give out free hot chocolate during the day.