If you're interested in J-school...

Introduction
Like many students, I came him here for Mizzou's great journalism program. As a freshman, you're probably going to change your major quite a few times... and unless you've been set on journalism for basically your whole life, there's a good chance it's going to change. If you don't want to study all the time and aren't just "naturally" smart this might not be the place for you. The grading scale can mess up your GPA just with the minuses alone. Your GPA has to be pretty high (2.75-3.0) to even be considered for admission to a seuence in the J-school. So if you want to party and hang out with your friends a lot of the time, just remember: the studying has also got to get done!

Campus Life and Social Life
Sports here aren't that great. We're always midrange when it comes to sports and at a lot of the games, especially football, if we're losing a lot of the crowd leaves during 3rd quarter. It depends on where you want to party and if you're into greek life. If you're a guy, you may as well join a frat. Seriously. You're not gonna get into a frat party if you go with a bunch of girls and you're not in that house. Don't even try it. There's quite a few clubs - but you have to look into them yourself. Living in the dorms is probably the best experience you'll have as a freshman. It sucks sharing a room and living so close together but you'll make a ton of friends. Advertisement
Academics
Like I said previously, journalism is really really competitive. Expect to study a lot to keep the GPA up. Psych is a cool department, especially with prof.'s like Big Dae and Strathman. There's not a lot of work to be done, but you have to know the material to make good grades on the test. Art history is another dept. that you definitely have to know the material. Lots of paintings and sculptures to memorize. Most importantly: GO TO CLASS!!!! Best piece of advice: stick to it - you'll get a lot more out of it.

Student Body
Mizzou has tons of out-of-staters and tons of kids who all went to the same high school. There's also a large percentage of the campus that is greek (I think I heard somewhere in the 80th percentile). Your "typical" girl greek student you'll see mostly in the afternoon. Usually carrying a tote with her greek letters on it and possibly a shirt from greek week or homecoming or their philanthropy accompanied by sweatpants tucked into uggs. Most other students tend to follow the sweatpant and t-shirt mantra as well. There's not a lot of dressing up unless you have a job or an interview. It's a very chill group of kids just trying to make it to class.

In Closing...
Mizzou is a great school. It's also a pretty difficult school. There's always something to do, but if it's not something you're interested in, you can and will get bored. The rec center is amazing. I don't think you can beat having a lazy river at your indoor pool, tvs on most equipment monitors, and flat screens on every wall. There's also a rumor that a spa is going in at the outdoor pool. I guess you'll just have to come and visit if you wanna know the truth :)