Work hard, play hard

Introduction
NU is the place for the A average student who can work hard but also wants to play hard. You have to be motivated to learn, but with all of the star professors and the variety of available classes, that shouldn't be a problem. I chose NU because I didn't want the pressure of a Yale student, but I still wanted to attend a top rated university. Besides, we're on a beautiful lake and a 1/2 hour El ride from the city. And you won't find a more diverse population. I'm not just talking about race. I'm talking about theater majors to engineers, sorority girls to nerds, and the study-hard students to the slackers. We've got them all. But I'd warn you to stay away if you're a Princeton wannabe or a party-holic.

Campus Life and Social Life
You can't expect a party each night, but you can still find a decent frat or apartment party on the weekends. And believe me, the smart kids love to get wasted and try the random hookup scene. But that can be a downer to the people looking for crazier "set fire to the building" parties or whatever. Then again, it's nice not to have people vomitting outside your bedroom door. And if you're into drugs, pot's the best we have.

Sportswise, our football team gets a lot of the limelight, as does our women's lacrosse. You can be as sporty or as non-sporty as you want to be, but it's definitely not a huge school thing. Clubs and other extracurriculars are endless - everyone can join anything. You can be in theater, make a solar car, play club soccer, start your own radio show, etc. Again, you get the most out of what you want. You'll get bored if you don't try.

Also, 40% of students are in Greek Life. Some of them are typical sororities/frats, but some aren't. There's a terrific variety, so it's up to whether you're into that sort of thing or not. You'll be happy either way you choose. Academics
Our engineering school is top notch. NU is a research university, so we're always doing crazy shit in the tech department. Theater's cool since everyone can participate. Journalism rocks, although the dean just changed so who knows where that will lead. And then film students have really nice access to equipment and are always on movie sets throughout the year. Honestly, the departments all have their good and bad sides. The intro classes can suck and then you'll dig into it, and life will be sweet.

A lot of NU's professors are famous people in and even out of their fields. These aren't the kind of people who failed in life, so now they teach. For instance, within the journalism dept, all of the profs are working reporters/editors. One of the sociology profs is the guy who invented the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. And we have guest profs too, like Arthur Golden, the author of "Memoirs of a Geisha," who taught a writing course in Spring 2006.

The workload is what you make it, depending on your study habits. I generally slack off until midterms/finals and I've gotten As and Bs while my roommate studies every night (but we all make fun of her). Then again, I've got an engineering friend who only has a life on weekends. And the film guys are always going out to shoot movies. Overall, prepare to work but don't be intimidated.

Student Body
A lot of students at NU are urban kids from New York and Chicago, but we've got a large mix. The population is racially diverse, and the financial aid program is great. In other words, we're not all snobby rich kids. Take me: I came from a white suburb, but now my group of friends looks like a text book cover (you know, the Asian guy, the Indian girl, the Jewish guy, the Mexican girl...) The campus is pretty liberal, but I expect you'd find that at any university. The downside to that is that we complain a lot, but we couldn't possibly consider ourselves political activists.

We're obviously into learning; most of us will graduate from NU with a double major or at least a major and a minor. But we all like having fun as much as the next kid.

In Closing...
NU is definitely what you make it. If you had an easy time in high school, you might have to try a bit harder at Northwestern, but you will love the free time that you never had. Some classes begin at 9:00am (or earlier if you're an engineer), but some students will never wake up before 10:00am. And your week should only be about 14 hours of actual class time. What a relief, right?

We also have a lot of great opportunities. Being so close to Chicago is great, but we also have a lot of awesome guest speakers and performers from Robert Kennedy and Ralph Nader to Kanye West and George Clinton.

But if you think you'll be sad being at NU instead of Princeton or something, don't waste your time. And don't prepare to meet hot guys or girls in mini-skirts. There are a few if you get into the Greek life, but our campus is pretty scenery-wise, not population-wise. Remember, we're the smart kids who set the curves in high school. But we're also the ones who actually had a life too.