All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go

Introduction
The biggest piece of advice i would give to any high school students considering washington state university would be to visit the campus in the winter time in order to properly experience just how awful the weather is during the winter months on the Palouse. This place is an icebox with fierce winds and cloudy skies, outside is awful starting in late november in this place. If this is the only school a student as a college applicant was accepted to, don't come here, go to a community college and go the school you really want to go to. If you're a student with any interest in art, fashion, culture, or music forget about WSU. This place is devoid of anything remotely close to what one could call art, fashion or music. Art is nearly non-existent in Pullman, with only a one exhibit art museum to its name. Fashion and shopping, forget about it. You know what we got? We have the Palouse mall, yeah you know what that is? It's a glorified strip mall thats 10 miles away made up of about 10 shoddy outlet mall quality stores which supply only the most dated of fashions. As for music, well the Gorge amphitheatre really isn't that far away, but forget about any decent shows closer than that. Besides, the Gorge only really has great shows during the summer which you definitely don't want to spend in pullman. In the summer months the population of pullman drops by about 15,000, nearly the entire student body. 100 degree weather in a town with nothing to do and all alone.. no thanks. Also, if you are a student who does not like to party, don't come to WSU. There really is nothing else to do but class, and get wasted.

Campus Life and Social Life
The worst thing about Washington State University is the fact that it is in the middle of nowhere. The closest urban center being Spokane, about 90 minutes away. No shows come to pullman, there is barely even a movie theater. The weekends are typically a blur of drunken nights at loud parties. Now, the parties are fun, plenty of booze, plenty of people, on a typical weekend night studies show that about 35% of WSU students engage in drinking related activities, it feels more like about 90% though. The weekends generally begin on thursday night and last through sunday morning with a lot of hard partying going on betwixt these 3 evenings. You do have to be careful in pullman though, everyone here seems ready to get into a fight, over nothing. I can't remember a weekend that went by where i was at a party, in Pullman, and I or a close friend that I was with wasn't either one: threatened, two: humiliated, or three: in a fight. People here seem to look for and have a specific desire to instigate and cause confrontation. They like to get wasted, hang out at parties, and cause trouble. And on a typical weekend that's where you're going to be, at a party, because lets face it, there is nowhere else to go in this little town in the middle of nowhere. So basically I hope you like drinking and house parties, because if not you're most likely to be left sitting in a dorm room doing a whole lot of nothing on the weekends as a freshman at Washington State University. Advertisement
Academics
The school itself is great. The classes are engaging and the professors are reasonable and approachable. The schools of business and communication are some of the more highly rated in the country, and rightly so. Just because wsu has a reputation as a party school does not entail that the school itself be a joke. Expect heavy workloads, but don't worry too much, there'll be ample time to get your work done because you'll find there is nothing else to do but study.. or get drunk.

Student Body
The typical WSU student, is tall, white, and in a fraternity or sorority. They are so into their brother or sisterhood, and feel thus superior to those not involved in the greek community. Typical students enjoy drinking, fighting, hooking up at random, attending sports events and generally being extremely rowdy. They typically drive around in Honda Civics and Ford trucks paid for by their parents blasting whatever music is number one on the pop charts, particularly "my humps." Generally the WSU student isn't especially bright. Whether they were intelligent or not when they arrived more than likely the constant flood of liquor and alcohol into their system has damaged their brain effectively enough so as to prevent truly engaging conversation. The typical WSU student looks exactly like the next, okay, scratch that they come in a few different "flavors." First there is asshole frat guy, easily spotted running highly intoxicated in his american eagle jeans and his "insert fraternity here" hooded sweatshirt on any given evening. Second is the Asian exchange student, often seen hanging around in large groups of small japanese speaking folk, they keep generally to themselves and won't be seen to much at the American parties. And third is the Dormie, haggard and quickly thrown together best describes the clothing with which they are adorned, their most likely to be found either licking the feet of the frat guys desperately trying to get into the frat clique, or being arrested for public urination. As for the girls, while they too come in a couple of "flavors" as well, you will only notice one. White girls wearing slutty outfits, wasted out of their minds usually with slutty intentions to match. They're loud, they love to dance, drink, and talk about, well you wouldn't be interested even if you did listen to their freakishly obnoxious sounding drunken words; you probably will however become quite skilled at feigning interest and if you are you will probably not have much trouble getting them out of those slutty outfits. If listening is too much to bear, and indeed it sometimes is, just wait for "Gold Digger" to come on, they can't resist but to dance and sing along to this song, strangely though they only seem to know the last line "when you get on he'll leave your ass for a white girl," every time it gets to this part of the song, somewhere a girl at wsu is singing along. And they could be anywhere, the bathroom, the bookie, grocery store, if that song comes on they will scream that line.

In Closing...
If you come to WSU, just don't expect it to be much. There is no city, no real ethnic diversity, no great music, no great people, and nothing really much to do. So if you're wsu bound, get ready to drink four years of your life away and to try and somehow balance the massive school workload with binge drinking.