<p>is it true????
are there tons of nerds that are supper academic focused and are hard to interact with?
hows the social scene? is there one?</p>
<p>It's a college, of course there's a social scene.</p>
<p>Perhaps it would help you to know that the wording is that U Chicago is the place where fun COMES to die, not GOES to die. There's a difference, because it's an internal joke rather than an external label. What the joke means is that U Chicago students know that they are working really hard and learning a whole lot, BUT REALLY, they're having a whole lot of fun too.</p>
<p>Nerds? Yes. Super academics? Yes. Fun? Truly.</p>
<p>This topic has been discussed ad nauseum in numerous posts on cc. Chicago is a vibrant university with all types of people and a tremendous amount of activities to do. If you are into fraternities and hard core division one sports, then maybe this is not your kind of place, although some frats do exist and an excellent division III sports program is in place. Not only does the university have just about any type of social program and activity that you might desire, but it is also in the city of Chicago which offers a plethora of activities and things to do. If you are looking for a school where kids value fashion, money and status, then Chicago is also not for you. People who go to Chicago do tend to love to learn and I think that takes priority, but not at the expense of having fun, and fun is different for different people.</p>
<p>And Chicago is the type of place where the students actually like learning. </p>
<p>It is true that if you view college mostly as a way to get your ticket punched, there are probably places where the task is easier.</p>
<p>OTOH, if you view college as a place where part of the fun is interacting with faculty and students in/out of the classroom, where class reading assignments and papers can be fun (or at least a decent challenge that you enjoy, most of the time) and where you look for opportunities to stretch yourself intellectually, then Chicago can be a great place. Not every student goes for these things (some do indeed party for 4-5 days each week) but many thrive on these intellectual opportunities.</p>
<p>Yes it does.
Yes there are.
No, there is none.</p>
<p>Now quit asking.</p>
<p>PS: Don't come here.</p>
<p>Matt: sarcasm much? Your posting history indicates you're UChicago 2012... which means you haven't arrived on campus for O-Week yet ;-)</p>
<p>OP:</p>
<p>This is going to sound silly, but it's important to clarify what you mean by "nerd" and "antisocial." I say that because these words mean different things to different people, and some people are proud to be "nerds" in a different way from what other people might consider "nerdy."</p>
<p>If we were to use "Revenge of the Nerds" (great movie) as a frame of reference, I would say that the vast majority of the campus is not "socially deficient" nerdy in that way. Some students are. But if you don't envision yourself connecting with a group of students who aren't traditionally social that easily, you'll find a lot of students who are traditionally social.</p>
<p>When I think of Chicago as nerdy, I think of the kinds of kids who like beer pong, rooting for da Bears, and the proof of the Mean Value Theorem. In other words, these are kids who appear on the surface as socially well-adjusted as could be but have a distinct intellectual drive. </p>
<p>It's one of the main reasons those kinds of students decided to come here rather than go elsewhere, to rejoice in that "nerdiness," and it's a kind of "nerdiness" that I think characterizes the majority of the students who go here. If you saw them on the street, in the supermarket, or at a party, you would not think of them as different in any way from anybody else you know.</p>
<p>The "Where Fun Comes to Die" slogan (thanks, Seashore, for giving the context) puts many students at a pause, but, as other posters mentioned, unless you are looking for huge, huge, huge parties all the time, you'll find different social situations that you enjoy. And, as other posters could mention, having those huge, huge, huge parties all the time is not necessarily a good thing. Students have fun with and without alcohol.</p>
<p>Hah, you caught me. It seemed worth it, though. Just how often can people really ask the same question over and over before you get sick of having to answer it?</p>
<p>This question comes up every year as a new crop of HS seniors (no self respecting HS junior would take college this seriously...) starts pondering their futures....</p>
<p>EDIT: mabye the mods can do a sticky on one of the threads on this topic?</p>
<p>newmassdad-- that would be a good idea. It's the kickoff question in my "Chicago FAQ" for a reason. But I'm also ready to re-answer it every time it gets asked.</p>
<p>Matt-- Every college has some negative and positive tags associated with it. I'm sure the Duke people are tired of being called "preppy" and "fratty" and the Penn kids "preprofessional," the Harvard kids "snobs," etc. The fact that the OP took initiative to ask the question demonstrates that the OP is interested in the school, and that to me is enough to write out a full response.</p>
<p>that was a nice response unalove</p>
<p>the thing im most scared about applying to UCHi is the workload
i really dont know if i can handle it..</p>
<p>id appreciate it if any students/alum could give me an idea of how many hrs/week studying ill be putting in, and how people cope.</p>
<p>My prospective major stands to be econ, if that helps.</p>
<p>It really depends, not only on the major, but on the way you work, your challenge level, and your expectations for the class.</p>
<p>One thing about Chicago is that you absolutely cannot do everything. If you're like one of my friends, who has a great social life, is an A student, bio/pre-med major, and puts in about 20-30 hours a week in work and extracurriculars, you will not sleep. If you like your sleep, are cool with B's and B+'s, and scale down your extracurricular involvement, you could still have room for a great social life and downtime. Again, you make these decisions. Every person I know divides up the pie differently.</p>
<p>Me: I get between 6-8 hours of sleep a night and the amount of work I do on a day varies. I schedule my social and extracurricular priorities first-- for example, spending a weekend in Iowa canvassing for Obama, going to concerts, lectures, parties, etc. and I do work in the downtime. I still have lots of time for knocking around on CC and watching TV. Believe it or not, I'm being challenged, but because I'm doing so many other things for fun to balance out the challenge, I hardly feel overwhelmed or frustrated.</p>
<p>I'll boil it down to simplest terms: If you are admitted to the school, you don't have to worry too much about the workload. If you anticipate that you'll be challenged and working harder and differently than high school, that's great. The problems arise with the students who were valedictorians of their class and didn't have to lift a finger. For them, Chicago can be very, very challenging. But again, some of those kids are the kids who want a school like Chicago the most.</p>
<p>foursuitsx, it's difficult for anybody to estimate how many hours you will need to work per week as an econ major. It really depends how smart you are compared to your peers and how ambitious you are with regard to course selection.</p>