<p>If Emory has a quidditch team, I would love to participate.
However, my overall question is broader: is Emory nerdy? Are there Harry Potter or LOTR fanatics? Would people take Quidditch seriously as they do at other schools? Can I bond with people over love for Doctor Who?
I plan on applying to Emory ED and am all ready to go, but am having last minute commitment anxiety. I don't want to participate in Greek life and am worried that with the Greek life percentage at about 30%, it is too prevalent and the students there might not be my type of people.
I am attracted to Emory largely for its diverse student body but continuously read that students are self-segregated and sometimes cliquey. Can anyone give me more insight about this?
I know from past experience that the students make or break it for me. I took a Johns Hopkins CTY course over one summer at a college that I absolutely hated in a location that did nothing for me, but had the best three weeks of my life because of the amazing friends I made both in class and in the dorms. Does anyone know if CTY kids ever go to Emory?
Thanks in advance </p>
<p>I know of lots of Dr. Who fans (hell, my best friends since freshman year were avid fans), not sure about HP (I would imagine there are, but I don’t want to say because that does not fit my “clique” of nerds lol), and I know at one point we had a Quiddich thing starting up, perhaps you could restart. It seems as if the more nerdy/intellectual folks I know are into Sci-Fi and things of that nature. You are also likely to find more nerds among humanities and social sciences majors. Also 30% is typical of a southern school. Just be glad we don’t have D-1 sports reinforcing the Greek scene. Then you would really need to worry about that. And if 30% of folks are in Greek life, of course people are cliquey. You also have many people from the same exact cities/regions of the US (and even school), so that is part of it. Admittedly, if you are sociable, it is extremely easy to make friends/several social circles freshman year without worrying about the influence of pre-Emory or frat cliques becoming impenetrable. I do not know what CTY is so cannot comment, sorry.</p>
<p>Also, keep in mind that when you were in that program, you were in a self-selected clique not necessarily representative of Johns Hopkins. I would say that anyone with your interests, no matter the school (unless it is like Caltech, Chicago, or MIT) will end up in a social circle or niche with those interests. Those will not be the prevailing norms and interests of most student bodies at research U’s, even ones known as “intellectual” (in this sense, usually that means, “geeky”/willing to discuss their academic or political interests outside of class. You know “late night conversations”). Often you will have to look for these things and sometimes, if fortunate, it is spontaneous. Part of finding the right people is placing yourself in the right academic environment…ie, choosing classes that tend to draw these sorts of people. Perhaps Voluntary Core for example?</p>
<p>You’re alive!</p>
<p>Did you leave Atlanta? I don’t see you on campus anymore.</p>
<p>to be honest, every college has its shares of the nerds and the frat life. if the 30% scares you, and I’ve heard it’s quite prevalent in the social scene, you should possibly reconsider applying ED. however if you do apply, I’m sure you will eventually find other kids who share in your interests. hope this helped!</p>
<p>Current sophomore here.</p>
<p>Emory does indeed have a club-level Quidditch team (it started this year), and it seems pretty serious as far as I can tell. However, I would definitely say that Emory is not nerdy. Most students I’ve met seem to head straight to the party scene on weekends. There are pockets of nerds here (including at least a few Whovians) and there to be found in various student organizations and social circles, including the NERD club (that stands for NePlusUltra Emory Role-playing Division) and Emory eSports (if you’re a gamer), but the social scene overall is cliquey and kind of one-dimensional. There’s a good chance that you’ll be able to find the crowd you’re searching for, but you’ll probably have to spend some time searching beyond the people on your floor (even though those are often the easiest people to talk to). </p>
<p>As for diversity and Greek life, the Greek scene is not nearly as in-your-face as the 30% rate might make it seem. There are plenty of great people in Greek life who are friends with us GDIs, and though a few immature people might berate you for not rushing, I’d guess that those aren’t the kinds of people you’d want to hang out with anyway. Diversity, on the other hand, is a mixed bag. People kind of stick to others from the same country, region, and/or of the same race, and though some groups are based on those characteristics, the environment feels pretty open. The main exception to that rule is the more rigid social boundary that exists between Chinese/Korean internationals and most of the rest of the student body. It’s actually pretty common not to know any people on the other side of that aisle.</p>
<p>@aluminum_boat: I’ve been getting interviews that I wanted (including one for a pretty serious national teaching fellowship that is coming up) and am making lots of tutoring money in addition to the lame day job I have so I am relatively pleased. If I can get into Georgia State’s MSci in chemistry program in the spring, it would be even better. Still waiting to see if I get an interview though which I feel I have a reasonable shot for, but they just got my GRE scores on the 17th (which they supposedly received on the 10th ,yet they take forever to process stuff) so I may have to wait some more (perhaps until after their review period) to see if I am just flat out denied (that would be kind of weird considering my reference letter writers, statement, and scores should be a solid match) or do indeed get an interview or am accepted outright. However, until then, I am just working on killing the teaching fellowship interview I got. It will be challenging but sort of fun I think. I think I can become a finalist there. If GSU doesn’t work and I don’t have to commit right away to the TF. I will likely try UGA integrated Life Sciences doctoral because I apparently impressed a scientist up there (I was almost hired until “free labor” screwed me over and decided to rotate his lab…IE grad students. Now I have to wait until like November to see if they select his lab. Must keep moving with other things, but I will keep in touch with him). I will also look to other funded masters programs for fall, but UGA I must send in soon, so I am waiting until about November 10 to see if I hear anything from GSU, if not…UGA goes in for sure. It’s getting (and has been) interesting…because I was not expecting the two UGA interviews I got (and I didn’t expect the second one to go so well), and then I wasn’t expecting the Woodrow Wilson TF either. Progress is being made and I fairly pleased. And I am still always on campus filling out new job apps (like cover letters), preparing tutoring lesson plans, writing grad. school statements…reading, whatever. </p>
<p>I am going to agree with esimpnoxin, with some small exceptions. I would claim that we have a pre-professional type of nerd scene that is growing…hence the growth of hack-a-thons (admittedly though, some of these and likely datafest, but </p>
<p>My final statement was: Emory, because of the professionalization of the “nerdiness” and intellectualism of students via hack-a-thons, student pubs (hybrid vigor, The Emory Pulse) is kind of developing this feeling of a watered down, east coast version of Stanford or something. In essence, these interests cannot remain just a time consuming hobby that may take away time from academics. If they are to take time from academics, then they must result in lots of money or become a resume builder. There is good and bad in that sort of culture. It is indeed making Emory more interesting than it would be otherwise, but it makes cultivating raw intellectualism more difficult. It also makes it more difficult to convince students that they can learn things by taking good courses when they can honestly just make more money or implement an important idea by generating an easier courseload that allows them the time to develop such ideas. I just wonder how this ties into how the administrators are bent on generating a more intellectually invigorated campus. I wonder how this sort of thing fits.</p>