Got Questions? Dorms, Life, Rooming, and More Answers To Be Found Here!

Colleges & Universities A-Z Northwestern University
1

<p>Ask away. I'm a freshman at Northwestern who's going to be a CA (basically the same as an RA) for next year. I'm from a suburb of Los Angeles, CA, and I'm enjoying Northwestern immensely.</p>

<p>I know I looked here when I had questions about Northwestern before arriving, and the most helpful resource was a person who posted here and answered questions about dorms and other pertinent things, especially when it came time around to pick out where I wanted to live.</p>

<p>I've got personal experiences with many of the dorms on campus, and i'm very involved in various activities here... So ask away. I'll try to check back here daily or more often to answer questions.</p>

2

<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=164238%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=164238&lt;/a> has a ton of stuff already, but maybe you can offer some new insights.</p>

3

<p>that's got some decent descriptions of the big-name mostly-party dorms, i suppose.</p>

<p>i guess i'm more familiar with the res colleges. I live in Shepard, most of my friends live in CCI (that's Ayers). I was looking for a place that wasn't a huge party area, but still had fun (i.e. not study all the time). i found plenty of places like that ;)</p>

<p>anyway, yeah... I'll still check in.</p>

4

<p>When the calendar says residential halls are closed on a certain date, does that mean you're kicked out with no chance of going back in? (I'm not planning on going anywhere for spring break for the sole reason of money.)</p>

<p>Are triples or quads bearable? (again, $) Is there enough space for everyone and their stuff?</p>

<p>Are the smaller or single-sex dorms that antisocial?</p>

<p>And since you're a CA, what are the benefits and how do you become one?</p>

5

<p>Shepard is at the top of my list right now with Slivka. Can you tell me more about Slivka and Shepard? I understand there will be some bias, but some comparison of the two dorms would be great.</p>

6

<p>I can answer some of these...</p>

<p>sneezy, usually if vacation starts on a weekend they kick you out saturday by, like, 2. You cannot stay in the res halls during vacations except Thanksgiving break. So you will need to find some sort of housing.</p>

<p>Triples and quads don't cost more money... but you probably won't be in one freshman year. Usually there is plenty of space, but you don't have to worry about that. It is a lot harder to be social in single-sex and smaller dorms obviously since there are less people, and less TYPES of people, around you most of the time- it just makes you put in more effort.</p>

7

<p>Do some rooms have showers in them? Is it common for there to be 'floor parties' I think I'd like that better than a mass party at some frat house. and when do we find out who are roomates are so we have enough time to get in touch with them and find out if we want to share things in our room or not? also, ill be an international affairs and political sci person so where are those poeple usually at and are international kids mixed around because ive made tons of friends that were exchange students in high school from all around the world and i just love my international peeps :)</p>

8

<p>i'm from around LA as well</p>

<p>how much trouble you had getting adjusted to chicago winters? i've lived in la my whole life so im not sure whether i can cope with the chicago winters</p>

9

<p>Chicago winter is bad but not unbearable to me and I came from Hong Kong. It's not North Pole or Alaska. Places like MN and Toronto are worse too.</p>

10

<p>Some of the dorms and colleges I am interested in are South, but being in McCormick, I hear most of my classes will be North. I'm from New England, so I won't be surprised by the cold winter in Evanston (I might sound crazy, but I prefer the cold, even blistering cold, to anything warm and humid). But is the distance from South to North far enough that I should not consider living South? or are there any other reasons why South wouldn't be a good move?</p>

11

<p>Do some rooms have showers in them?
Yes. Unlikely you'll get one but they exist.</p>

<p>Is it common for there to be 'floor parties'
Yes.</p>

<p>when do we find out who are roomates are so we have enough time to get in touch with them and find out if we want to share things in our room or not?
You will have plenty of time, don't worry.</p>

<p>here are those poeple usually at and are international kids mixed around
I guess PARC, but really... any major can live anywhere.</p>

<p>how much trouble you had getting adjusted to chicago winters?
It's not that bad.</p>

<p>is the distance from South to North far enough that I should not consider living South?
Not at all. There are engineers here in Willard (farthest Southwest dorm) and they manage fine. It's a long trek to the frats and I do it every day.</p>

12

<p>Sam Lee- You're from Hong Kong too?
I was wondering, did you get your laptop in HK or in the states? My dad is worried the warranty and whatnot. And what happens if it breaks down?</p>

13

<p>I've heard bad and good things about Ayers CCI. What's your view on it as housing, especially for someone who might not be interested in a business profession?</p>

14

<p>Well, if you already have a laptop, bring it over. It's no worse than leaving it unused at home. </p>

<p>But if you haven't got one, I'd recommend buying it here. The manufacturer's warranty may not be different since they have offices all over the world. If it breaks down, you most likely can mail it to some local factory where they can try fixing it for you. That's what I'd imagine, don't count on my words though. </p>

<p>But here in the US, many people shop them in mega stores like Best Buy, Circuit City, CompUSA (they don't really have those little independent ones all over the place like in Hong Kong) and these shops usually give you the option to purchase no-lemon warranty. It's not cheap but that's the option you can have. In fact, I got a Fujitsu a year ago and the mouse pad just stopped working not long ago. So much for being one of the most reliable brands! I bought the no-lemon warranty (it's proportional to the price of your machine; mine was like 250 dollars for a $1400-dollar laptop) that's good for 3 years and I gonna bring it back to the store and ask them to fix it. If they can't, they'll have to give me a new machine that's equivalent to the one I have. I am hoping they won't be able to fix it cos I don't like mine, LOL! But if I got mine from Hong Kong, I wouldn't be able to just drive and drop my laptop in those stores. Who knows how long it's gonna take through mailing back and fro?</p>

15

<p>Purposeful1,</p>

<p>I'm trying to decide between Northwestern and USC for journalism (maybe broadcast) and pre-law, and possibly business and /or poli sci.</p>

<p>Since you're from southern California, I thought you could give me some info on what made you go to Northwestern instead of staying in California.</p>

16

<p>I want to stay in Slivka...I'm a Bio-med Engineer major...thought it would be a good idea...how is it???</p>

17

<p>Slivka is good if you don't like to party, and are just mildly social, and have lots of weird quirks about you. The social people I know that lived in slivka all hated it.</p>

18

<p>Well, I'm going to preview NU tomorrow and I will find out...I am a pretty social person...so we'll see...thanks for the tip</p>

19

<p>ack, been busy recently, sorry.</p>

<p>Ok, As for chicago winters... they're not too bad, just gotta get prepared. Ask someone who comes from the area to take you shopping for a real coat and real boots/gloves, etc. Do it sometime in the fall, and don't go to Uncle Dan's (the local outfitter) because it's vastly overpriced. Oh, buy 180s on ebay or something. they're around-the-neck earmuffs, really nice. they sell for $26 apiece at Uncle Dan's... I got 2 for $15 on ebay (then sold one pair for $10). Getting used to the cold wasn't too bad; the only thing I never completely got used to was it taking 15 minutes to get dressed with all the layers as opposed to the 20-second throw-on-some-shorts-and-flipflops at home.</p>

<p>As for USC.../leaving cali... USC's great for making connections if what you're planning on doing involves movies/hollywood. You can't do much better than that. However, on most other levels, Northwestern does better than USC, except for financial aid and weather. I chose Northwestern over cali schools because I wanted to experience something outside of Southern California, and it's been eye-opening to say the least, but extremely enjoyable. Heck, having midnight snowball fights is awesome, especially in some of the woodsy-like environments here.</p>

<p>Slivka vs. Shepard....</p>

<p>I lived in Shepard this year. The rooms aren't huge, and you're going to be living in a double if you're here (unless you get the one triple room on the female side of the first floor) or you get a "dingle" (a double room with no roommate, usually due to that person dropping out at the last minute--the guy across the hall from me had a dingle for the entire year because his roomate went to West Point or something instead of NU). Shepard's got great facilities, medium-quality rooms (some of the closets are a bit weirdly-organized, and there aren't built-in overhead lights), an awesome community (by that I mean there's a lot of bonding of very different people, and although there ARE quite a few music majors due to the great practice rooms, there's a lot of variety. For example, I'm a philosophy-intl studies double major, and my roommate's in McCormick. Back to community, we have tons of activities with people in the dorm organized by the exec boards and your CAs). </p>

<p>Slivka's quite different. It's suite-style, so people get small singles with little common rooms in a hallway. The door to the suite is required to be shut due to fire regulations, so it kindof hampers community-building. It gets a reputation of being quite antisocial. Almost everyone up there is a Bio/Chem major or an engineer. The building's new, though, and it looks like a hotel compared to most of the other dorms. Nice facilities, though more sciencey-based (i.e. study rooms, printer rooms), whereas the Shepard facilities consist of a classroom, several music/dance practice rooms, kitchen, a couple tv lounges, and a performance room with a baby grand.</p>

20

<p>Some other answers I forgot to address:</p>

<p>The walk from North campus to south campus is definitely bearable. I live on south campus, and the majority of my best friends live on north campus. It takes about 15 minutes if I walk really slowly. Ten minutes at a normal pace, five minutes on a bike or running. I've done it in three running to a south campus dining hall before it closed from north campus... I was highly motivated (very hungry). I'd suggest getting a bike (they sell really cheap ones during the beginning of the year) and buying a lock; it's really nice being able to go north and south quickly, especially in fall and spring quarters. During winter quarter a bike isn't quite as useful, but you can take the shuttles in the evening to avoid the colder walks. There are shuttles that run from north campus to south campus from 9pm to 3am yearround, and additionally from 6pm to 9pm in the colder months. There's even been talk of adding shuttles during the day (from some ASG members)...</p>

<p>CCI's a good mix of people; there are econ majors, premeds, engineers, liberal arts people. Although it's not defined as being a variety (like Willard's panthematic and Shepards "multithematic"), but it's one of the more varied ones on campus. You'll find study partners with whatever you choose to study, don't worry =D.</p>

<p>As for the USC-Northwestern debate, Northwestern's Medill has been ranked at the top for journalism for a while now... So it really depends on whether journalism or hollywood-style stuff is more important to you. Either way, you'll probably have a job out of college. =D.</p>