Make it Your Best

Introduction
I chose UWM mostly because of the city itself. Milwaukee is a great place and UWM is located in an even greater neighborhood. I guess my main piece of advice for incoming Freshmen would be to take Freshman seminar classes. They are small classes that make the transition from high school to college much easier. The kind of student that should stay away from UWM, mostly the dorms, is someone who wants to get some serious studying done. While there are some 'dorm dwellers' that take their studying seriously, its hard to get stuff done when there is always tons of people around.

Campus Life and Social Life
I live in the dorms currently and I absolutely love it! Almost all of on-campus housing is in the Sandburg dorms, which is comprised of North, South, East, and West towers and houses about 3,000 students. North, South, and West towers are mainly freshman dorms and East tower (the newer and MUCH nicer tower) is mostly upperclassmen. The dorms are arranged into houses and suites. Two floors share a house, each floor has 9 suites, and the three bedrooms that make up the suite share a bathroom. My one recommendation is to NOT live with a friend you went to high school with. From personal observations, it seems to either tear friendships apart or that person is your only friend. There is always a party in someone's dorm on any day of the week and there will always be someone willing to have a drink with you. Also, if you live in Sandburg, be prepared to deal with crazy elevators and lots of stairs. Weekends get a little crazy and you can tell that if you watch people walk in to the dorms and around campus on a Thursday or Friday night. If you're not into the whole drinking scene, there's the hookah bar, concerts at the Rave, the beach, museums, restaurants, and the newly renovated Bayshore Mall, all just a short bus ride from campus.
UWM has the smallest campus as far as actual space, but is the second largest as far as population in the state. Campus is just the right size and everything is pretty close together so you don't have a long haul from class to class.
There's ALWAYS something to do on campus for anyone. Advertisement
Academics
UW-Milwaukee is known mostly for its great Architecture and Urban Planning, Buisness, and Arts schools. I've had both good and bad experiences with TA's. I've had some who you cant understand because of their accents and I've had some that are great teachers. I've also had some pretty good Professors who actually care about how you're doing in their class (and sometimes other classes as well) and a few (mostly from Freshman seminars) have even checked up on me to see how I was doing. Overall, I wouldn't say that the workload is too bad, in fact I've had a lot of nights where I've had little or no homework.

Student Body
Sports really aren't that big of deal around campus. Men's basketball is probably one of the biggest, but people don't really care in general. Diversity is so-so. Probably more than you are going to see at any other UW system. Because UWM isn't too difficult, there seems to be a lot of students (especially Freshman and Sophomores) that are here just because they don't have anything better to do and don't want to get a real job. For the most part, UWM is filled with kids that work hard and have a good head on their shoulders, but know how to have a lot of fun at night.

In Closing...
Milwaukee is a great choice if you like the big city atmosphere, but a small campus. Make sure you get off campus every once and a while and explore what downtown has to offer. Make sure you dont go anywhere at night by yourself. Trying to get a dorm can be kind of difficult, but try your hardest because it is a great experience that you will regret missing out on. Most of all, have fun and make the best of it...college is what you make it out to be!