<p>Hey everyone! :)</p>
<p>College confidential has helped me a lot during my college search and admissions process, so I thought I’d give back to the community a little bit. I’m a rising sophomore at AU, majoring in International Studies (what AU calls IR) with a focus on international political economy, and I’m open to whatever questions you wanna ask me! Go ahead and shoot!</p>
<p>I’m so glad you volunteered to answer questions because I’m interested in American University and International Relations! I have two questions, one about academic opportunities and one about the social life on campus. First, I was wondering if it’s possible for freshmen/sophomores to get internships, or if they’re more reserved for juniors and seniors. My second question is if the social scene is mostly on campus, or off, since Washington DC is so close. Having a defined campus is really important to me, so I was just wondering if life at American stays at American for fun, or if most people go into DC to have fun.</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>Hey Finnah, I’m a rising senior at AU. </p>
<p>1) Of course Freshmen and Sophomores can get internships, and I actually recommend starting as soon as you step foot on campus. The bigger-name ones certainly require a bit of experience on your resume, but I haven’t heard of anyone that wants an internship and didn’t get one. AU has one of the top 20 Career Centers in the country and it only works to your benefit: mock interviews, resume help, and an exclusive job and internship database helps you get your foot in the door early. </p>
<p>If you want to get academic credit for your internship – things get a bit trickier. You must be at least a Sophomore (and it tends to be Junior and Senior year because people tend to use Capitol Hill internships for this purpose, and those require taking a popular class beforehand if you want to use the Hill internship for academic credit.)</p>
<ol>
<li>In my experience, and Swamp 147 might answer differently, I find that for the first two years – people tend to stay on campus, but when they turn 21 Junior year, the party scene shifts off campus. But I guess it’s really dependent on what you consider to be fun.</li>
</ol>
<p>Your first semester especially you’ll spend a lot of time having fun in the city, just exploring it and seeing all the monuments and Smithsonians. The Student Union Board is getting a lot better at bringing attractions to campus, like Welcome Week is decently big at AU (like this year we have B.o.B., YelaWolf, and Playboy Trey performing live at the Tavern on campus. There are always a ton of activities, and speakers, all of which you’re informed about by a daily email called ‘Today@AU’ which gives you an idea of what’s going on around campus. So in sum, I think it depends on a) what year you are in school and b) what your idea of a good time are.</p>
<p>1). Do you know anything about AU’s newspaper? I picked up a copy and was very impressed. Are you involved or aquainted with someone who is? I wanted to know how much of a time commitment is required to join (if you are familar with the paper), and whether freshmen can participate.</p>
<p>2). How common/easy it is it to double major at AU? I’m interested in IR, but journalism as well. Have you heard anything about their comm. department?</p>
<p>3). How has your experience been with AU’s merit/financial aid? If you don’t mind sharing, would you be able to provide your statistics as well as how much aid you received? I’m trying to figure out a rough approximation of how much I should anticipate. </p>
<p>4). Have you studied abroad with AU, or do you know much about their program?</p>
<p>Thanks so much for the insider information!</p>
<p>1.) Here’s the scoop on the Eagle. It’s not great. I’ve seen better high school newspapers, but it is fairly widely read on campus. There is also an online version ([The</a> Eagle Online](<a href=“http://www.theeagleonline.com%5DThe”>http://www.theeagleonline.com)) but the most popular part of that is the ‘Eagle Rants’ section which is part Post Secret part Texts from Last Night. The newspaper hasn’t won any awards (that I know of) in three, going on four years and it’s not required for the Editor in Chief to be a Journalism major. </p>
<p>BUT! I think it’s trying to turn around, particularly after a debacle in Spring Semester of last year. And the new Editor in Chief IS a Journalism major. Any student, of any year can participate and I think it’s really as much of a time commitment as you want it to be. But if you go to the website, you can email one of the editors and find out any specifics. </p>
<p>2.) AU makes it fairly easy to double major, so long as you know you want to do it coming in. If you make a plan, and are okay with the fact that you won’t be able to take a whole lot of blowoff classes – it’s relatively easy. AU’s School of Communication is fantastic – sporting impressive alumni who are news anchors, producers and a vice president of the Washington Post. There are loads of internships available in both online, print, media (video/photo) journalism around the city – anything you could possibly think up. The SOC is a wonderful school, with classrooms set up to mirror a board-room environment that you’ll encounter once you graduate. </p>
<p>The Rankings:
<p>3.) AU financial aid is the best out of the big 3 DC schools, but that’s not saying much. I had an EFC of approx. 13k and received 11k in financial aid, which leaves a rather large gap because as a transfer I didn’t receive any merit aid. I do know that as a freshman, if you have the grades, their merit aid is extremely generous. </p>
<p>4.) I personally haven’t studied abroad at AU, I did it at my old school. But I know a lot of people do it for a semester and then go on Alternative Breaks offered throughout the year. Here’s a comprehensive list of programs that give you an idea of where you can go. If you click on something you’re interested in, it’ll give you details such as language requirement, minimum GPA, and where you’d be staying within your host country.
[Programs*>*List</a> All<em>></em>AU Abroad](<a href=“http://auabroad.american.edu/index.cfm?FuseAction=Programs.ListAll]Programs*>*List”>http://auabroad.american.edu/index.cfm?FuseAction=Programs.ListAll)</p>
<p>The Rankings
Peace Corps rankings for medium-sized colleges with the most volunteers (2009)</p>
<h1>3 for undergraduates</h1>
<h1>5 for graduates</h1>
<p>Institute of International Education (Open Doors Report, 2008)</p>
<h1>7 among the top 40 doctoral institutions for the most undergraduates studying abroad</h1>
<h1>18 among the top 20 doctoral institutions for long-term study abroad</h1>
<p>Hope that helps a bit!</p>
<p>Yes, I must admit that my high school newspaper is more extensive than the Eagle (30+ pages). However, compared to many of the college newspapers I’ve read where people put commas outside of quotes and forget to align the columns, the Eagle is quite nice.</p>
<p>Ooohhh man, I apologize for being absent the past week; I’ve been busy packing and finishing up stuff at work, etc etc, but everything’s done now, gonna drive down to DC with my parents in the morning :)</p>
<p>AUTransfer: Thank you so much for stepping in. You answered the questions better than I could. I’ll just add my thoughts to the more opinion-based questions.</p>
<p>finnah: Much of the social scene at AU is really what you make of it; it depends a lot on who you hang out with. During my freshman year, I spent most of the time on campus, with occasional outings (go out to restaurants, shopping, clubbing, partying in the apartments). I found a group of friends who do like just hanging out around campus. We often watch movies, find club activities to do, just plain chilling. I do know some other people who were quite the opposite though (like my roomie) – he went out like every other night to parties and clubs and who knows what lol. So, like AU Transfer said, it’s what you make of it. You can find stuff to do on campus and you won’t be alone in that area. Or you could go out (I mean, I wouldn’t recommend never leaving campus, there’s a lot of stuff to see and do in DC) all the time. </p>
<p>SvenskanFisk: I didn’t qualify for need-based financial aid at AU, so I can’t say too much about that, but if you have a good GPA and good test scores, AU does have decent merit scholarships that are easy to maintain (keep a 3.2 or better gpa, which won’t be a problem if you’re qualified for a merit scholarship anyways). If you want the statistics, my high school GPA was 4.4/4.5, SAT 2190, ACT 34, merit-based aid 27k per year.</p>