<p>I was just wondering about the safety at Northwestern. How safe is it exactly...on campus and off? Like, for example, are there a lot of robberies or crimes that occur?</p>
<p>on campus you'll never be bothered. off-campus you might hear of 2-3 robberies per year. east evanston (where northwestern is) is a very affluent area and crime is rare.</p>
<p>further west off campus i might be slightly more apprehensive of walking alone at night, particularly if i was a girl, but it's not west philly or anything.</p>
<p>the university safe ride system could be better, though.</p>
<p>Oh that's wonderful :) Thanks! I'm glad to hear that Evanston is pretty much safe. Haha. I'm loving Northwestern even more now.</p>
<p>what is the university safe ride system?</p>
<p>You call SafeRide when you want to get from A to B on campus. It operates after 9PM daily (I believe). Usually the only drawback is it takes 30-40 minutes to arrive, but they give you a wait time ("we'll be there at 10:30PM" for example) and on the whole are very reliable. So if you know you want to be at a party by 11, or you want to go home in 30 minutes from wherever you are, if you plan accordingly it can be a great resource.</p>
<p>"safe ride" (it used to be called "escort"), is a free car service students can call for a ride home from the library, a party, etc. They run from 10pm-2:30am on weekend nights, I'm not sure about the week. However, on very busy or cold nights they can get booked up, so while it's handy, it doesn't always come through like it should.</p>
<p>Is Northwestern's campus so big that it should be an issue of concern? I mean I've been to the campus, but it didn't seem that large. I guess this was because we didn't go to the engineering area.</p>
<p>The campus is easily walk-acrossable; but a) when it's cold, and b) very late at night, no one wants to be walking alone in the dark (on campus, groups of 3 and such are really not a safety concern; alone, it's always a concern no matter where you are). But ESPECIALLY if you live off campus, even in the nicer areas of Evanston, you never know who is around and SafeRide can be very helpful for this.</p>
<p>So SafeRide actually goes off campus to help give students rides as well?</p>
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So SafeRide actually goes off campus to help give students rides as well?
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<p>yep. in fact, i've never even heard of anyone using saferide to get between two points on campus.</p>
<p>Really? People used it freshman/sophomore year to go from south dorms -> frats and back all the time.</p>
<p>oh yeah i forgot about sorority quads -> fraternity quads, i've seen that</p>
<p>Is SafeRide the only available transportation offered by the university during the night?</p>
<p>There are shuttles too.</p>
<p>actually saferide starts at 9 pm, 8 pm in the winter. And fyi, people <em>other</em> than greeks use saferide to get between north and south campus. i live off campus this year and even though the wait is usually at least half an hour, it's a great resource when it's 20 below and you want to go grocery shopping, to a party or to a meeting on campus at night.</p>
<p>As a recent NU graduate, I felt very safe at Northwestern. I lived in on-campus housing all four years. The university spent more money to add walkway lights and emergency phones at all areas of the university, on-campus and off-campus. At the same time it is not a utopia. Petty crimes, such as burglary and robbery, did occur while I was there and it's best to use your common sense at all times. Don't walk in poorly lit areas.</p>
<p>Saferide is also good, and the NU shuttles run frequently.</p>
<p>I've walked at 3 am from the library to my dorm and I felt very safe.</p>
<p>there was an editorial in the daily today about how poor of a job saferide is doing, hopefully this encourages them to augment it</p>