Not the Worst - But know what to expect

Introduction
The biggest piece of advice that I can give is to be smart. The police here keep the place safe, but just don’t get caught doing anything you aren’t supposed to. The University of Delaware has some rough policies. Like if you are drinking underage with a friend and your friend gets sick and has to go to the hospital and it gets reported to the university, he will get two strikes (3 and you are on probation or some crap) and I believe you get one. Totally not cool.

Delaware however is my home state, it is a nice place. I grew up about 40 minutes from here and I now live in Newark. I LOVE the town! There is not a lot going on, but it is safe and has a very low crime rate. Your parents will sleep better knowing that it is a nice campus.

As far as who should not come here, kids looking for a crazy town. There is a LOT that happens (parties and frats and all), but for anyone under 21, there is not that much that the town has to offer (we have a lot of food places open 24/7). Really if you grew up in a large city and love the ‘city’ life, you probably will be bored out of your mind at Delaware!

Campus Life and Social Life
Our social life is interesting. After your first semester here you will notice one thing, most of the freshmen girls / guys are all just players looking for fun times. Take it from Van Wilder: “don’t be a fool – wrap your tool.”

Parties can be fun if you are smart. Some parties are pretty big and fun, but you should know that cops can be a bit of a pain, driving around trying to break up REALLY loud parties.

Fake ID’s? I’m 21; I do not have to worry about this. But I will tell you do not even try to use them. Especially around big party weekends there are many undercover cops that walk around the liquor stores that will step up to you, show you their badge, ask if you are 21, and ask for proof. I’m not saying they hound me the second they go in – but I don’t want anyone to think it’s easy because there is a risk since you do not always know when or where they will be. And do not bother using a fake ID at the bars: they will ask for a second form of ID (a student id, a credit card, anything) if they suspect anything, they will then take your id and throw it out / call the cops / or be cool and tell you to leave now.

Most people here like to just party and have a great time, there are a LOT of attractive women and men here (guys, this school has more girls than guys, and at any given party I would say at least 2 out of every 3 are hot). If you are more quiet or prefer the non-preppy / hate Abercrombie attire know that there are groups out there but those friends are harder to find (check out the Corner diner on Main Street after 2am any day of the week).

As far as the actual campus life is concerned, the University of Delaware has many events going on. If you know where to find out what is happening or you join groups like SCAPAB you can even help organize big events (last year we had a concert with the Black-Eyed Peas, and we had Dane cook here a few months back). There are a lot of ways to meet new people and network (in case you never heard of it – facebook.com is a cool site for starting to find people who are in your classes or to find random people to start poking!) Advertisement
Academics
The University of Delaware has recently been increasing their standards. They are being much more selective about who is accepted to the school. The University also has several very competitive fields (this review is coming from an undeclared super senior who has considered many technical fields so I can not speak for fields related to anything non science or business related).

First off, know one thing about the University of Delaware: THE MATH PROGRAM AT DELAWARE SUCKS!!!! If you are considering Delaware and your major requires any sort of advanced math beyond pre-calc please be advised. The math professors were under review supposedly several years ago for failing too many students. They are horrible, I have had too many that offered little help and resulted in me failing several calculus courses. You CAN PASS but please read ratemyprofessor.com first before choosing classes, and please be prepared to study HARD in this topic. Simple Example: I graduated with a girl who was in the top 10 out of 300 in our grade at a local private school. She passed the first engineering calculus with no problem. The second calculus she failed TWO TIMES before she finally passed!!

As far as the rest of Delaware is concerned, I can only speak for classes I’ve taken. I will say that Delaware has some very awesome business professors (note that business is a very competitive field) – look for an economics professor Link – he is a very good teacher in my opinion.

The computer science department has some wonderful professors also. I highly recommend Professor Conrad. This guy makes an effort to learn your names even in a class of 50 students at 9 in the morning! He was very delightful to have as a professor and very helpful.

Student Body
I really do not know what to put for this section about the student body. A large population of the students who attend Delaware come from New York / Pennsylvania / Maryland / and New Jersey. With a small number from in-state (Delaware is admitting fewer students every year from in-state).

A fair number of the students are pretty well off, with parents helping or paying completely for college. Most of the kids will be wearing preppy clothes so if you hate people dressed like they are going to an Abercrombie party, you might not be too into the weekend scene.

You will run into your fair share of people who are tools and completely fake. But you will meet a lot of good people. I would say that for every 5 new GOOD friends I make in a month, I meet one person who after getting to know them turns out to be a complete egotistical self centered brat. Treat them with respect and they will treat you with respect.

In Closing...
I hope you at least take a look at Delaware. It’s not as big of a party school as it was 10 years ago (unfortunately!) but it still is a fun place. I love the town a LOT. It is very safe and peaceful. There are MANY of awesome corners to tuck yourself away in to study (thousands of awesome study spots in the Morris Library where none of your friends would every easily find you. Along with hundreds of other cool places to study.

The best tip I can give you in regards to your college career is to listen to what advisors tell you but hear this: if Delaware says you can not do something, do not always believe them. If you want to take a class that is full you can get a pink slip signed by the professor and the head of the department to get you into the class. And if you want to take a class but do not have the required major or are the required year, wait until drop/add and you can add the class through the online website easily without anyone saying that you can not do that (I have taken several advanced courses that were open to majors only simply by adding the classes a few weeks before school started!)

I hope you walk away from this review being slightly more prepared for college life, enjoy the next 4 to 6 years, and talk to anyone and EVERYONE; you will be amazed at how many good connections you can find that will be so useful later on in your college life.