My Changing View of JHU

Colleges and Universities A-Z Johns Hopkins University
1

I used to really trust what most people on this website said about JHU: its cutthroat, no collaboration, unsafe city, etc. I never actually visited the campus before, not even in the city. But just last week, I visited the campus and attended an information session there.

Thats when my perspectives on JHU were totally altered. JHU emphasizes research along with a liberal arts approach. Liberal arts is emphasizing collaboration and critical thinking skills. To say, the college is non-collaborative is a fallacy. In fact, they make different majors work together to solve problems in the classroom. And the people of JHU are optimistic and willing to do just that. JHU, like an other top college, will expect you to be competitive but also be a team player.

And the city… Baltimore. Baltimore, like any other city, has its unsafe parts. Ive heard the most ridiculous comments on this site for example , " I didnt want my D to attend JHU just because its Baltimore". Chicago is much more unsafe, yet UChicago gets tons of applicants who don’t realize it too has its bad parts.

Please stop with the assumptions of crafting JHU as a terrible and unfriendly place to prospective students. JHU is surrounded by a vibrant city life and extraordinary academic- collaborative opportunities.

2

I wouldn’t go so far as calling the distribution requirements at Hopkins a liberal arts approach, though it definitely gives students the space to do that if that’s what they want. And while Hopkins classes do involve a lot of critical thinking and collaboration, you definitely won’t see that in every class. If different majors are working together on something in a classroom, it’s because they’re all students who signed up for the same class, not because they have different majors.

Just want to throw a balanced perspective out there. Hopkins is definitely an amazing school, but when I was a high schooler, I had unrealistic expectations about what colleges would be like. Don’t believe the people posting that Hopkins is the worst, most disgusting place ever, because you’ll miss out. But don’t believe that Hopkins is perfect either (and don’t believe what they put on the website, lol), or else you’ll be let down. Reality is somewhere in between.