Maryland, My Maryland

Introduction
Maryland is a school to go to if you want lots of options. You have to make decisions independently but the advising departments will be more than happy to help you once you have made your choice. The school takes up a lot of space and includes a lot of people so you have to involve yourself to get the most out of your experience. The students who get the most out of Maryland are the ones who don't have a problem meeting new people and finding friends. If you need constant supervision or dorm created activities, you won't find them here. Sports is huge at Maryland. I came to school not knowing anything about football or basketball and was converted to 'The Fridge' and 'Garyland' ways of life. (The Fridge is our football coach who has reinvigorated the team and Garyland refers to the university being overrun with basketball fever from November to March) This can get annoying if you have late classes and nowhere to park but it is also a great opportunity to become a Terp Fanatic!

Campus Life and Social Life
The best part of the social scene at Maryland is that there are so many clubs and activities going on all the time you can try your hand at pretty much anything. You can join groups based on faith, ethnicity, educational goals, professional experiences, political affiliations, sport interests, or anything else you can think of. There is a healthy Greek system on campus, 14 Panhellenic sororities, 22 IFC fraternities, and a growing multi-cultural and PHC community. But at maximum the Greeks only take up about 20% of the student body so if that isn't your thing then there are more than ample other opportunities out there. There always seems to be something going on over the weekends (which tend to start Thursday nights so try to avoid Friday classes) because most upperclassmen live off-campus but within walking distance. The housing can be an issue. If you are a transfer, you should forget even trying to get housing and they are attempting to entice you to move off-campus or to the on-campus but non-dorm apartments owned by the university after your freshman year. They are still building however and hopefully the housing crunch will be settled in the near future. There are 5 bars in College Park. Everyone has a favorite and they are typical college cheap bars. One thing to remember: don't park anywhere illegally. Every year at graduation a speaker makes a joke about how the graduating seniors no longer have to compute parking fines into their monthly budget. Advertisement
Academics
With multiple colleges within the university, the academic possibilities can get a bit overwhelming. Communications, Engineering, Business and Criminal Justice are departments that tend to be qute large but there are Anthropology, Women's Studies, Gender Studies, American Studies, and Theatre Arts that all graduated under 15 last year. Similar to the social atmosphere, you do have to seek out your professors but I've never known anyone to really avoid students. The maths and sciences do tend to be taught by amazing professors who have heavy accents so be prepared to work with your classmates in some cases. TAs are a constant all over campus from large lectures to very small seminars. They are pretty much hit or miss similar to the workload. One of the coolest things is that we have a business called TerpNotes off campus where they will sell you notes that people have taken in previous semesters for the class that you are taking. So in theory, you could buy the notes and never go to class. (It doesn't always work but you can have some pretty well rounded notes that way) You don't have to be a genius to come to Maryland but you do have to study to stay here.

Student Body
There is no typical student at a school this big. New Jersey and Long Island send a lot of kids here, but so do all the counties in Maryland. However, I have met people from all over the country and the world in my classes and organizations here at Maryland. One thing you notice is that likes stick to likes similar to any other large institution. Do you have to have everything in common with people to be their friend? Absolutely not, but you will meet people who you have things in common with, that's a guarantee.

In Closing...
My favorite thing to tell people about Maryland is that at a school of 22,000 plus I passed by my friends and roommates two or three times a day. You find your niche whatever it is at this school and you can really flourish.