<p>Thank you guys so much for your all your helpful information :) You've got me leaning towards NU... </p>
<p>So if there is no core curriculum at NU, how do the classes go? 4 classes you choose a semester?</p>
<p>I believe Northwestern does have actually have a core curriculum.</p>
<p>According to Fiske, NU graduates must complete science, math, social science, history, ethics, humanities, and arts requirements.</p>
<p>And it is also worth noting that both Chicago and Northwestern have quarter systems. Chicago kids alternate between 3 and 4 courses a quarter while NU kids have 4 each quarter. And I seriously question the notion that going to Chicago would be noticeably harder than going to NU, if at all. </p>
<p>Also:
Chicago's debate team is also very strong, having a top 4 team for 4 of the past 5 years. </p>
<p>NU has alot of preprofessional programs that UC lacks.</p>
<p>lol, uchicago has no spokesperson for the programs. and im too lazy to write it all out. check gourman reports, nrc rankings, usnwr, to see what undergrad and grad areas each is strong in. check out the websites too.</p>
<p>The U of C is about 20-25 minutes from the the loop and about 45-60 minutes from Lakeview (hip area). It's easy for students who want to do internships downtown to do so.</p>
<p><em>a clarification on arbiter's post</em> Chicago does offer music, visual arts, and a theater and performance studies major. However, these majors take the mantra of "theory over practice" and I don't think the U of C is well-recognized in the performing and visual arts world, but certainly those ways are a means of getting a degree here.</p>
<p>We are, however, tops in musicology and cinema and media studies (note: academic aspect, not production aspect).</p>
<p>Chicago undergraduates have access to a lot of excellent facilities, including but not limited to the hospitals, which are right next door to campus, the Oriental Institute, and a lot of other little "institutes" that don't have their own buildings. I wouldn't include the MSI in this calculation, because it's not University-owned, but it is right there.</p>
<p>I'm on Northwestern's academics homepage looking for interdisciplinary programs similar to either Chicago's Fundamentals major or ISHUM major. In the Fundamentals major, students ask a question, read I think 6 texts to help them answer that question, and turn that question into a BA paper with a lot of great faculty helping to steer the ship.</p>
<p>The ISHUM major is an "anything goes" major, where students write a proposal of what they want to study, get it approved, and write a BA paper on the subject that they are studying. When I first looked at majors, I wanted to go to schools with programs like American studies and Urban Studies as majors, but I realized that precious few schools had them. Instead, I felt that ISHUM was a good option-- that I could design my own American studies or Urban studies major if I wanted to, and pull out themes from sociology, economics, philosophy, English, history, etc. I ended up not going that route.</p>
<p>"Chicago does offer music, visual arts, and a theater and performance studies major. However, these majors take the mantra of "theory over practice" and I don't think the U of C is well-recognized in the performing and visual arts world, but certainly those ways are a means of getting a degree here.
We are, however, tops in musicology and cinema and media studies (note: academic aspect, not production aspect)."</p>
<p>And I think unalove is hitting on a key distinction between the overall philosophies of the schools. At Chicago, the focus is on the academic / theory area. At NU, it would be more on the performance / production area (NU's theater school is nationally known, every darn TV show I watch has a NU grad in it somewhere, there's a lot of student filmmaking, etc). Which is not to say that there aren't theory classes at NU and opportunities to perform / produce at Chicago. But each has its own prevailing emphasis. Again, whether these are good or bad distinctions is up to you and what you want to do with it. If you wanted to become a filmmaker, you might prefer NU and its links into the East and West Coast media worlds. If you wanted to ultimately become a professor of film studies and media criticism, you might prefer Chicago.</p>
<p>Unalove, are all of UChicago's facilities (including grad) on / near Hyde Park? What's in the downtown area? That might be a distinction that the OP might be interested in.</p>
<p>OP - from the Northwestern standpoint, the graduate humanities and sciences are all on the Evanston campus, as is Kellogg (business school). NU's downtown campus has the medical school / hospitals and law school, as well as an evening / part-time Kellogg program (which I attended).</p>
<p>Cafesimone, since you mentioned creative writing as an interest area of yours, you might be interested in this ... It's at the graduate level, but nonetheless could be of interest.</p>
<p>Just to balance out Una's post about ISHUM and co (which are super duper cool, don't get me wrong), but NU does have one of the best American Studies programs in the nation:
American</a> Studies Program, Northwestern University</p>
<p>I'ts a highly selective honors major, requiring you write an honors thesis, with special seminars exclusively for the majors, led by some of the most distinguished faculty at the school (Henry Binford and Carl Smith come to mind, along with Ken Alder, and many more). Each student picks their own concentration and crafts a course of study with their adviser, choosing courses from multiple disciplines.</p>
<p>Plus there's the ad-hoc major option, but that's lame- most schools have that.</p>
<p><3 American Studies. It's one of the reasons NU was on my radar when I was in cafesimone's shoes, actually!</p>
<p>omg you guys - you are SOOOO helpful!!! I've been perusing through both websites, but the information I'm picking up here is like, wow. </p>
<p>arbiter, i'm not sure what the term "ad-hoc major" means :( can you clarify?</p>
<p>Lots of info there, I'll try to excerpt the key info, but basically, you design your own major, from scratch, and petition for permission to do it. Recent ad-hoc majors include:</p>
<pre><code>* Multidisciplinary Models of the Mind
* Jewish History and Culture Within the International System
* Gender, Medicine and Science in Society
* African Studies
* Digital Media Arts
* International Development Policy
</code></pre>
<p>
[quote]
If you decide that you would like to design your own major, you should first discuss your proposal with a congenial professor who is an expert in at least one of the disciplines included in your prospective field. You may need to consult with a number of instructors. Among other things, you must determine whether Northwestern offers enough courses in your field(s) of interest to make up a program. Don't base your plans on courses which may be offered, or on the expertise of a single professor, or on the prospect of a string of 399's. Your program should reflect existing and continuing curricular strengths. It should also be robust enough to survive the departure of any one professor.</p>
<p>If you and your advisor(s) decide that no existing major can accommodate your special needs and that Northwestern has the courses and the faculty that your alternative major requires, your next step is to petition the Curricular Review Committee for approval. Petitions supported by faculty advisors are not approved automatically. They must be convincing in content and presentation. The burden of proof lies upon you to show that your proposal is intellectually rigorous and practically feasible. The following suggestions are to help you make a persuasive ad hoc major proposal.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>So cool! One last question: are U of Chicago or NU strong in International Relations? </p>
<p>For example, I know Columbia doesn't have that as a major, so you have to make up your own major.</p>
<p>Northwestern has an International Studies Major, which is, if I recall, an adjunct major (meaning you have to do it alongside another, related major).
International</a> Studies, WCAS, Northwestern University</p>
<p>NU is, therefore, not the first choice for someone who wants to study IR. That said, there is an International Studies themed residential college (ISRC</a> Home Page), and NU's political science program is a decently strong program- if you were to do a Political Science Major with a concentration on International or comparative politics (which you can do), along with International Studies, it'd amount to the same information.</p>
<p>But NU is no Georgetown SFS.</p>
<p><em>sigh</em>
how did you know I wanted to apply to SFS....</p>
<p>Chicago offers International Studies as a standalone major and International Relations as a subfield of the Political Science major.</p>
<p>The primary difference I can see between a Chicago degree and an SFS degree is that the SFS degree is much more career-oriented, while at Chicago any degree includes a broad core curriculum.</p>
<p>More like the difference between SFS and almost every IR program. SFS is narrow.</p>
<p>And for the record, Chicago is ranked 7th by Foreign Policy Magazine's Undergraduate IR rankings (not the best indicator, but take what you can get). NU is not ranked (only 20 ranked programs)- I don't know if NU not offering IR influenced that, but it's worth noting.</p>
<p>Am finding this VERY interesting. S2 (a rising junior) seems to be headed in the direction of IR, and gee, what if... Chicago was already on the radar for other reasons ;) and S2 already knows that the history and poli sci departments are very strong. </p>
<p>Arbiter, do you have a link to that Foreign Policy article?</p>
<p>It is, unfrotunately, now subscriber only. It's called "Inside the Ivory Tower".</p>
<p>I do have this though:
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/other-college-majors/503437-ranking-undergraduate-international-relations-programs.html%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/other-college-majors/503437-ranking-undergraduate-international-relations-programs.html</a></p>
<p>That Foreign Policy article is nothing more than hogwash. Truly, if you seeking to use THAT as a guide, you will truly most probably be misguided. Are we should that this is the only guide available for undergraduate IR programs? I could have sworn there is more...</p>
<p>It is no surprise to me that the discussion here has been very cordial. I've studied and worked at the University of Chicago for some time and the schools aren't rivals. As bastions of elite education in the Midwest, they generally look for opportunities to cooperate and tend to have different strengths.
Very broadly, the U of C prides itself on being an intellectual powerhouse. Enrico Fermi and Milton Friedman could certainly have toiled at Northwestern, but it just doesn't seem right. The worries about campus safety at the U of C are overblown. On the other hand, for some time the focus at the U of C has been on the graduate and professional schools. Undergraduates tend to be treated as adults as a consequence, and support systems are not particularly strong. The chances of a student committing suicide at the U of C are 10 or 20 times more likely than dying as a result of a crime. Both, of course, are unlikely for any particular student.
I have less first hand experience with Northwestern. They are much more professionally oriented on the undergraduate level than the U of C, with Journalism and Theater being particularly famous. Students seem much more social in the conventional sense and wealthier, too. Of course there are many rich, private school kids at the U of C as well, whose style includes playing that down.
On a completely subjective basis, I would say that U of C undergraduates have become more professionally oriented than they were 10 or 15 years ago. I attribute this to the echo-boom generation overflow from the Ivy League. Of course it is also possible that this is a trend in society generally.
Both are terrific places to spend four years for the right student.</p>