Hi,
Im a senior who applied early action to Georgia Tech. I love the school but I’m a bit worried about student life. I have heard that people stay in their rooms to study almost all of the time and that people are introverted/shy/nerdy. I am a people person and don’t think I’d thrive in that kind of environment. Can anyone tell me if this is the case, or if I’m mistaken? (hope its the latter!)
Maybe someone who’s a current student there can address this, but what we’ve seen/heard (visiting, having friends who choose to go there) is that there’s a definite mix of students. SOME students are going to be giant nerds who spend all their time studying. SOME students are super outgoing. They have Greek life and tons of students clubs. It seems to me that if you want to join a bunch of stuff and party hard (or whatever), those opportunities aren’t at all hard to find. If/when you are accepted, take advantage of the opportunity to do an overnight on campus with a current student so that you can see for yourself.
It’s a myth. There are over 400 active student organizations including a student run radio station, newspaper, and theatre, a variety of intramural sports leagues, and 56 Greek organizations. Even those students that are more academically focused than average are involved in collaborative research labs, form study and project groups with others students, and participate in things like the InVenture Prize, an interdisciplinary and Emmy-winning innovation competition.
There are certainly some students who don’t take advantage of everything the campus has to offer, but if you’re looking for an active social and campus life, you will likely find what you looking for at Georgia Tech.
Sounds like you belong in a fraternity (or sorority). Among the dozens of frats, there’s a fit for every personality. Rush helps you meet them all and see which group clicks with you. All have built in social life. At Tech, as you would expect, studies come first will all the frats, but there’s always something social happening.
@jschlumberger I am a GT parent of a freshman. Twenty five percent of GT students join a fraternity. There are now almost 40% girls in the entering classes. The GT outdoor club is the best in the nation for rock climbing, mountain biking, and kayaking. The GT rock climbing club provides transportation to northern GA or Tennessee rock climbing locations EVERY WEEKEND. There is so much to do in Atlanta and a lot of students do service work in the area. The marching band is very active socially , and the kids in that are traveling and getting out a lot. Even the nerds get out a lot as there are so many clubs to join like theoretical CS club, hacking clubs, mechanical engineering clubs, entrepreneurship. There are division 1 sports. For sure the athletes are not studying as much as others, they are busy traveling and playing sports. Basketball and football are fun to watch, there is a lot of tail gate parties and they beat good schools in those sports. There are dozens of teams like ping pong for novices too. The swimming pool at GT is literally the Olympic Pool from the Summer Olympics in 1996. Athletic facilities are just amazing and students use them. The slides at one pool are like Water World. To a parent, it looks like an ideal college location, with a very active student body, but visit and see for yourself. Alumni groups are strong too.
My daughter is a student at Tech now, and she’s not particularly outgoing or social, but even she is busy with social events. She goes to football games, basketball games, the symphony (and she was not a classical music fan before–I’m not even sure where that came from), parties, rock climbing, coffee dates, parties (I know I said that twice). She has what sounds like an incredible diverse array of friends; in fact, two international friends (and I don’t even know what countries they’re from) are coming home with her for Thanksgiving. I really don’t think you’ll have any problem finding playmates. She does study a lot, as she has mostly graduate-level classes, but she also plays a lot. She lives on campus but has never lived in a dorm (long story there), but she still has made plenty of friends. I think it would be even easier if you live on campus your first year.
I’m a current freshman at Tech right now, and I would classify myself as an introverted/shy individual and out-of-state. I came to Tech knowing literally 0 people, so I had many of the same worries coming in. I have to say that your statement is definitely true to an extent, but this is going to be true for every university on the planet; however, even with my shy nature, I have many great friends and I have been much more outgoing than I used to be. I joined a ton of clubs especially within the College of Computing, and there’s no shortage of clubs campus-wide. Like mentioned above, 25% of the students go into Greek life, and we are in the middle of a large city, so resources aplenty. On a scale from 1-10, 1 being hermit and 10 being never home, a large majority of people on campus are 4-8. Very few people are 1-2. You’ll find the right fit if you go here.
Tl;dr no we don’t just stay in our rooms and study, that’s a myth. Most people don’t want to stay in their dorms all day and study.
Honestly my gt student goes out a lot including week nights. Parties are big on Thursday and friday nights. Saturday nights are more quiet. If you want a social life and like to go out it is most certainly available. Its not a dead campus by any stretch of the imagination. On the other hand if you want to be a squirrel that is available too. I don’t think my child was in the dorm except to sleep. Most kids study in the Culc. The classes are brutal and you better like calculus.
As a lot of other people said there’s a huge variety of students here. What I love about being at Tech is that you can choose when to go out and when not to. No one will make you feel bad about saying you have to stay in and study. There are tons of events that aren’t parties as alternatives, but there certainly are parties. The weird thing here is that the big nights for Greek events are Thursday and Friday not necessarily Saturday. Parties are actually great as even if you’re not in Greek life you can almost always get in. People here also tend to be very passionate about things and get involved in clubs related to those or do things like Hackathons.
Current student. everything you said is simply not true.
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