<p>Okay, i'm back from my visit!</p>
<p>So i'll talk about the academics, because i'm guessing that's what a lot of you want to hear, what they told us about the business school. Okay, so everyone has a real high opinion of the business school. Our tour guide was doing a useless Psychology major (sorry if that offended anyone, but it is), and she was jealous that while she's a poor college student, she sees all these business school kids going to high paying internships over the summer to NYC and LA, whereas she's doing nothing. You could definitely tell the business school people from the rest of the school, there are more asians in the business school, more diversity, and people from all over, coming to IU just for the B-School. It's the nicest and newest building there, you get that feeling the second you walk upstairs, and you see the words "Hall of Honor", and pictures of important people on the walls. You walk into a meeting room and it's got a 40 inch plasma TV, with nice chairs. </p>
<p>I had to leave and talk to my Sport Management person in HPER (which the students call "hyper"), and I was like "dang, now I have to leave this building"! But the B-School overlooks the arboretum, which is GORGEOUS, there's a pond, lots of open field. About the arboretum, a bit of history. They were going to make it a parking garage, and the students protested, so they got that area instead. The library also overlooks the arb, the library is big. In 2 sections, the UG library and the G library, she said she doesn't like going into the G library, because it's really quiet and serious. In the arboretum, you can bring your laptop and access the internet. It's sweet, anywhere on campus you can access the internet. Indiana was one of the most wired and unwired campuses in the country. They have ethernet in each dorm room, and if you don't do ethernet, you just have the really nice wireless connection. Oh, and if you don't have a laptop/don't want one, they have computers everywhere. Every dorm has a computer lab, you get like 650+ pages for printing so no worries, you're not going to get over that quota. When you turn in a paper, they use something called "Turn it in.com", which is a plagarism check, in addition to a hard copy. There is something called MTS, where the graduate students volunteer for experience for, and you turn your papers in a few days before the deadline, and they turn it into an A paper. Real nice.</p>
<p>The dorms were alright, they weren't new or anything, some are airconditioned, actually only 3 of them aren't. Briscoe in NW isn't, Reed in SE isn't, and I don't remember the 3rd one. It's on central campus. It's easy to get A/C, if you have a nice doctor they can make a note for you, and IU doesn't care, they don't have the time to call the doctor or anything. And you don't really need A/C, they let you put fans in the windows and it doesn't get real hot except for the first few weeks of the school year.</p>
<p>I said earlier that I saw a bunch of kids studying. Turns out, they are getting out in like a week, a lot of papers were due, and it's a busy time academically. The Union is HUGE. I got lost in it about 3 times. There are so many places to lounge and study, although there was more lounging than studying going on it seemed. </p>
<p>If I had to describe the typical IU student, I would say it's a white male who wears IU clothing, is casual, not too social, not too into parties. If you are preppy and wear collared clothing everywhere, Abercrombie, popped collars, etc, you won't fit in here. Although the fraternity guys seemed to be like that. As for the girls, well, it seems like half are here to party. Short skirts, IU clothing (3 out of 4 kids had an Indiana shirt on it seemed), some had heels, some didn't. Just the typical kid at a high school, not real alternative, not preppy, for both sexes. </p>
<p>My mom is in love with the campus. It's so nice, we were there on a 70 degree day with nothing but sun. The river that runs through, the architecture, the Indiana Limestone buildings, the Union, the gates, it's all SO NICE. The pathways, they are well lit at night, fun to walk through. There is no place that seemed even close to unsafe. And they have phones with blue lights that you can call in emergencies on campus too, although I only saw a few of them. There is a lot of lilac colored trees/plants, also Red and White tulips in the gates, it was real pretty. Kids were walking outside, making sure they enjoyed the scenery rather than staying in buildings, just a gorgeous day. </p>
<p>As for things to do, I found more today. Turns out, I didn't go far enough down on Kirkwood Ave. to really see things. There are tons of places to eat. There's even a mall north of campus that the bus runs to. Buses run all over campus, kids say it's easy to take them, I didn't see any real long lines to get on the buses. I would even see 2-3 on one street at a time. </p>
<p>Okay, for my sport management meeting, this was real important to me. I asked them about internships, and she said that actually she got an e-mail from someone who was just employed by the Raiders, who came back to IU saying "Hey! Send me some interns!" She said that there have been a lot of kids that have gone on to work in pro personnel for major organizations, and that placement is good. They don't have guaranteed jobs for graduation, but rates are high. They have a career center, postings, and advisors. I don't know much about the business school, but everyone said those graduates get the best jobs out of all the graduates. For SM, I asked why their program wasn't approved, and her response was great. "It's by choice. We don't want to go through the lengthy application process. Our program is known as one of the best, employers come here, we don't need some recognition for that. You don't find better schools than us for Sport Management". I thought this was exactly the response you needed to say to a question like mine. </p>
<p>What else... ummmm... financial aid. Some weren't pleased with their grants. Actually, for OOS students, there really isn't anything to do other than get scholarships (Faculty Awards, and departmental awards). If you get directly admitted to a school, you can apply for scholarships once you get on campus, but that's the only way you can really get more money. Have to get a good GPA too. They have a job fair, where there are some employers there in the morning for the work-study students, and even more employers there later in the day for the non-work-study people. It's pretty pointless to do work study, you can only work a certain amount of hours, and the pay is about the same. She said that I should just get my own job, as there are more options and I can work as much as I want to pay for my education. </p>
<p>They also said for housing not to request a place just because "hey, that's where my major is", because you're not going to be taking classes in your major until sophomore year, well, maybe 1-2 freshman year. They want you to be exploratory the first few years, try out other things, which is a waste of time and energy for someone like me who already has their mind made up. Oh well, no way around it. For business students, they have to take I-Core, Which is like management, marketing, finance, accounting, and other courses, before you go into one department. Basically they want you to experience everything. The people I ran into were all doing finance, which was interesting, there were people coming from all over for that program. Some kids had i-banking ambitions, and even were doing internships.</p>
<p>You're probably wondering negatives, well, I would say the lack of diversity is the only turnoff. For every 90 kids, there are about 10 minorities, and 80 caucasions, 50 of those caucasions being from Indiana. But no one is really racist, there's organizations for each minority group too. The people are really nice, although I question the intelligence of some people. It's not ivy league caliber students you're competing against, rather average joes. Not too hard to get a high GPA from what it seemed, although you're definitely going to have a changing lifestyle with more studying each night. </p>
<p>I'll answer any questions, it was a great visit. There were kids turning in their enrollment deposit as I was leaving the tour, although i've got a couple other colleges I want to look at.</p>