A Slacker's ND

Introduction
If you do not enjoy football and can't stand jocks- stay away from Notre Dame. From August to December we eat, drink, live, and sleep football. Even when we suck. Also if you have a hard time with conservatives, this isn't the school for you. A lot of people will voice their conservative views and push them in your face. It isn't easy being an active liberal at Notre Dame, though I myself am I liberal. I chose this school because it was the only place that felt right to me when I visited schools in high school. Also I am a legacy, and it is nice to know that members of my family have paved the way for me.

Campus Life and Social Life
It can be tough to be a freshman at Notre Dame, I'm not going to lie. Football weekends in the fall: everyone parties very hard on Friday night, then wakes up early Saturday mornings to drink and by Saturday night, everyone is too worn out sometimes to go out. Upper classmen tend to drink every night of the week if they can, except Sundays (because there is no alcohol sales in Indiana on Sunday). Upperclassmen and those with good fake IDs go to bars Monday-Thursday nights. Sometimes there are good house parties to go to on weekends, but when it gets cold most people who can go to the bars. When it is warm, Turtle Creek (an all student apartment complex) and the people who live there will all have parties where you can walk around from apartment to apartment drinking. It can be pretty fun. Lately South Bend is cracking down about partying though, which can suck. Also we don't have frats so the single sex dorms kind of become like a frat or sorority. People usually are placed in the dorm they fit in best with. For freshmen, dorm parties are all right, but for everyone else they can be pretty lame and get old quickly.

Interhall Sports are a lot of fun, and tons of people participate in everything from bowling to lacrosse. It's a great way to get to know people in the dorm. There are also various clubs that people become involved with that you find on every other campus, and students get pretty passionate about them. Advertisement
Academics
Almost all of our departments are really strong and will help you get internships/jobs because of the spectacular Notre Dame network of alums. The weakest department is the art department, because most people who are into graphics and art and want to spend their life doing that would probably go to a special school that deals strictly with that field of study- like RISD, Berkeley, etc. But our art and theatre departments are growing fast for those who are interested. Your workload depends on what you study and how much time you are willing to put into it. Personally, I am an Arts and Letters major and I do minimal work and still get good grades (Bs and As). However an engineer will spend tedious hours doing what they do and be stress cases. As for architects- they can go for days without sleep.
When picking classes we have a website that only students can access that has reviews posted by other students about teachers and courses. So before we sign up for a class, we can check to see if that teacher is really hard or really easy, whether the material taught in class blows, or if it is really interesting. The website comes in really handy. In general, most professors are great and dedicated to making sure that their students can access them outside of class. You could be in a class with 200 people or with 10 and still have opportunities to meet with the professor outside of class to get help.

Student Body
Students are from everywhere, and we have all different types of people. We represent all 50 states, with people coming mostly from the Midwest, East and West Coast. There are also a lot of kids who are here from South America and Europe/Asia. I would not say that there is a ton of ethnic diversity. There is some diversity, but not that which you would see at a state school. But there is something or some group for everyone to fit into here if you are gay, black, white, asian, hispanic, goth, artsy, athletic, etc. The common thing that the majority of students are into though is football. With our football tradition its isnt hard to see why. All students can buy tickets to home football games, and almost every student goes to home football games. Though I do know a few people who wake up to tailgate and then dont go to the games. Which is fine. You're not going to be an outcast if you know nothing about football or dont like it. As far as the typical student goes, I dont think there is really one. We might be preppier than most schools, but we are a catholic school, and most catholic/private schools are preppy.

In Closing...
Notre Dame is a great place if you keep an open mind. It has been the best years of my life thus far, and I can't imagine going anywhere else. Even days when I feel like nothing else is going on and I could be having a better time at another campus, I know that I would never find the friends I have here or get the opportunities for after college that Notre Dame has set me up for anywhere but here. We kind of become a cult that we love our school so much, and if you come here you will see why we love it so much.