I heard that the academic environment tends to be very competitive and not supportive at Northwestern but I was wondering if that applies mostly to the pre med/engineering type courses. I plan to major in linguistics, and I will probably also take many foreign language courses. Will this be an issue for me?
I have a son and daughter that are recent engineering alums - and they both talked extensively about how supportive and worthwhile their study groups were & a lot of their close friends were from their study groups.
They would say that the academic environment is intense, as opposed to competitive, but keep in mind that all NU students were probably at the very top of their HS - and used to being the smartest kids in the class - and now they are surrounded by other kids just as smart.
I can’t speak to linguistics at NU - but you don’t go to NU unless you want to be one of the best. Good Luck!
Sounds like your kids had a good experience, but I heard that there is a lot of competition and sabotage vs a school of equal caliber like Dartmouth, where classes may be intense but not cutthroat
i honestly havent really heard much about cut throat competition at NU. i heard it was rigorous but very collaborative
at Northwestern, we don’t complain about each other: we complain together :’)
even in 10-person classes graded on a curve, I haven’t experienced much cutthroat competition