Avoid Rochester like the plague

Introduction
If you like cold weather, then you may like this school. This school does not really excell in anything particular, and quite frankly would not be worth attending even if it did. Although to give credit where credit is due, the engineering department, I have found, treats their students very well. The people in the department are extremely nice and helpful.

Campus Life and Social Life
Sports and Clubs, unless you're into a multicultural group or play a division III sport, are non-existent. The weekends are boring and getting off campus is difficult. And binge drinking gets old fast. I've tried for the past three years to restart the club lacrosse team and failed every time.

To be fair, in the fall and late spring the campus is wonderful. But the winters are long and brutal. I've also noticed because of the lack of social life on campus, and the depressing atmosphere many students who attend this school tend to develop severe depression and anxiety issues which have to be treated with medication and counseling. Academics
The Engineering department is really geared to help the students. Academics, and Academic support is phenomenal. Although I can only speak for the engineering department, the workload is rather extreme. Many nights are restless and I've found most students who switch to other majors not because of difficulty with the subject, but because of health and stress issues.

Classes are helpful, but a lot of the work is done outside of class. TA's tend to run extra help sessions, and are rather useless past sophomore year. Most TA's at the higher levels, are master's and PhD students who have not taken the class they are TA'ing for. But to be fair, if you really need the help... it is available, mostly by arranging apointments with the professor. Overall my academic experience has been outstanding.

Student Body
Students are generally nice, and there is a healthy music scene. If you're social and respectful you should have no problem fitting in and finding a group of friends. There has been a trend for the general student population to be getting nerdier every year.

Not to be judgmental, but it seems that the type of kid who comes to this school was the quiet one who sat in the corner in high school. Not a rule, but the trend seems to be going that way.

In Closing...
Honestly if I could do it all over again I would avoid this school at all costs. I picked this school because of my interests in acoustics, music, and engineering. And this school was one of the few that offered a chance to try each.

Looking back it is truely important to look at life on campus. A healthy atmosphere is really essential. The surrounding city is dead, and rather dangerous. Many of my friends have been held up at gun point, mugged, or stabbed... even on campus. Theft is very frequent.

This school is drain on ones health and energy. All and all the past three years have not been pleasent when considering the stress, workload, weather. The school is not all bad, but there are much better choices so do yourself the favor and look elsewhere.