<p>Also, another thing to consider. I went to bars with the kid that I “prospied” with last night. He’s an econ major with a 3.75, and 4 years of banking internship experience. He applied to over 200 jobs in finance and consulting, all over the country, and has not gotten a single job. He will be leaving this “top-tier” institution to go live at home with his parents and do nothing. Now, I’m as aware as anyone that the economy reeks to the high heavens, and that not a lot of people are hiring right now, especially in finance. Still, if NU really carried the prestige that you all claim, it would be kind of ridiculous for a well-prepared, successful individual such as this to go 0 for 200 in his job search. He’s not alone either; one of my best friends is a senior who got a 3.8 as a philosphy/psych double, killed his LSAT, and has an exhaustive bevy of internship and leadership experience, and he hasn’t gotten a paralegal position yet. Out of all the seniors I know (including ones in Medill, which is supposed to do really well with job placement), I can name three (3) that have gotten jobs. One of them is working as a foreman at a steel mill back home in Minnesota. Bottom line: status or not, NU does a poor job helping you to get where you want to go after you graduate.</p>
<p>
Okay, no problem there. But then you start to speak for others:
No, I didn’t have that experience. I was happy with my teachers. In my engineering firm, I was considered one of the few with great technical skill (aka, the skill more related to what you got from school). I went to Stanford for grad school and I didn’t notice any significant difference in terms of the way the professors teach and how much you feel they care about you.
It find it interesting that you don’t give any credit to the positive–the 4 years of banking internship while focusing on the negative–he got no job offer. You also totally underestimated how tough the job market is these days. I talked to a friend in LA last week and he said he met a guy whom my friend called “very smart, very bright, HARVARD MBA”. That guy is looking and looking and he’s telling my friend that it’s a very tough market right now. He got no job yet even with a HARVARD MBA!</p>
<p>Wary- it’s false because you stated opinions as fact, and anecdotes as universal judgments.</p>
<p>You guys, he is giving his opinion. This is America and he is entitled to it. I was recently waitlisted by Northwestern and don’t feel to bitter about it because I had heard about the things that warywildcat is trying to warn people of. I know quite a few kids that go there and they like it, but they also have told me about the MANY flaws dealing with the school. The teachers are not dedicated to the students in the least. I have heard this from EVERY person I have talked to about the school. The school would not be so “prestigious” though if it was not actually a good school. It is. But like everyone else on this site, you guys(include myself) get offended by people saying one bad thing about your school. Everything will be ok. He brings up legitament points and supports them with evidence. Give the man a break. He is not speaking out of his ass…</p>
<p>See, I’m going to just say this flat out and bluntly- you don’t know, because you’re not here. ALL of my teachers have been incredibly dedicated to teaching. While many of those are from the special programs I’m in, many others are because I actually pick my classes well. Don’t expect your big intro class teachers to be your best friends- they don’t care anywhere. There are many problems at NU, but not caring about teaching is NOT one of them. Tell your friends to pick their classes better. And personal anecdotes barely count as “evidence.”</p>
<p>And enough with the “this is America” crap. You’re right, he’s entitled to his, and he’s entitled to voice it. And he did. And we’re entitled to ours. In fact, we’re allowed to discourage him from voicing his, so long as we don’t explicitly block it. Are you in 5th grade? Because that was the last time I heard “it’s a free country, I can do what I want!”</p>
<p>Northwestern is not perfect. It is flawed, but, for many students, such as myself, those problems are minuscule in comparison to the opportunities and experiences allowed by our time at Northwestern. If it were truly so terrible, our retention rate would be substantially lower, and students would enroll in smaller and smaller numbers. The truth is, Northwestern is a great school, and the majority of students (with the exception, it seems, of the OP and his misanthropic friends) really enjoy their time here.</p>
<p>haha sigh…every CC thread that talks about pros/cons of a college seems to turn into a violent “vs. thread”…why can’t we all be friends? :)</p>
<p>I’m actually kind of disappointed about Medill changing the whole journalism program. I feel like it would be better for aspiring journalists like myself to go to a school better known for what we are interested in (whether that be english, polysci, etc) and get the hands on training from working on the student paper, and journalism courses, internships, etc. I have talked to many journalists whom I have met through my parents connections or touring j-schools around the country, and all of them have echoed similar advice on how to break into the disappearing journalism field. I feel like I’ll end up choosing a better school than Northwestern and still get the training I need without having to put up with Medill’s new crap…and if journalism falls through, I at least have a degree in something else I enjoy and can fall back on…anyone with me? Medill is making me upset…ugh…:(</p>
<p>CoffeeAddict,
Your concern is valid perhaps at schools like Missouri or Syracuase. Northwestern is highly ranked in english and polysic…etc and you can easily double-major at WCAS. Or if you really dislike what’s going on at Medill, you can just forget about it and major in, say, english which is a top-20 department. Unless your other choices are schools like Harvard or Columbia, you are not choosing a school better known for those fields, regardless whether Medill fails to meet your expectation.</p>
<p>warywildcat, im a potential freshman (i got admitted and & working on making my decision), and i appreciate that you decided to tell us about your experience at nu.</p>
<p>but i have to address what you said about sexual assault. i live by one of the UCs (UCR), and about a month ago at a meeting we had two officers from their police dept. come talk to us about safety on college campuses and specifically about sexual assault. unfortunately, sexual assault is something that just happens at college campuses, and while there are ways to prevent and avoid it, sometimes it simply happens. while it is an unfortunate fact of life, sexual assault simply happens, at all colleges and everywhere else. i have a friend who (while still in high school) was rufeed last year when she was at a party with friends from her really nice all-girls catholic school in orange county and their brother school. things just happen; so for you to say that because three girls got sexually assaulted means that nu is not safe and you should go somewhere else just doesn’t work. also, if they wanted to press charges, they needed to go to the police, not the dean of students.</p>
<p>I understand how much it sucks that your friend is unable to find employment, but right now is one of the crappiest times for people to even keep jobs, much less find them. For example, teaching has always been thought of as one of the most stable professions. In my school district alone,around 325 teachers have been pink slipped, and over seventy have already been told that their job is definitely lost. Some of these teachers that I know personally have been with the district for five years or more. In this horrible economic time, it is completely understandable that someone just graduating would have a hard time finding a job, as almost noone is hiring and most companies are actually firing, especially in the financial sector, which is not doing so hot.</p>
<p>[Spotlight</a> Online 2009](<a href=“NACE - Page not found”>NACE - Page not found)</p>
<p>Top Majors Percent of students applying who have landed a job<br>
- Accounting 38%<br>
- Engineering 23<br>
- Business Management 22<br>
- Computer Science 22<br>
- Health Sciences 22 </p>
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</p>
<p>Most would observe my accomplishments at Northwestern this past year and think that I have nothing to complain about. Little do they know, my life here is unfulfilling and I am desperately struggling to get out. I have joined a “top” sorority, become invovled in a variety of organizations, attended lectures and concerts, engaged in trysts with the opposite sex (though most guys here are self-righteous and below the standards of normality: ladies, adjust your hot-guy goggles), attended those infamous but tragically lame frat “parties,” and wholeheartedly set out to reap the benefits of every opportunity NU has to offer. While this school may be for the atypical nerds who are perfectly content abstaining from the experiences of traditional college lstudents, then so be it, but I can’t stand it here. WaryWildcat, wherever you are, you make a solid argument and I respect your decision to disclose the idiosyncracies of this place. </p>
<p>Some ignorant person made a post about simply transferring. Well honey, it aint that easy. As mentioned before, GPA’s comfortably rest in the suckiness realm regardless of one’s efforts…here’s something I wrote on my transfer applications called “Appendage to Bad Grade:” “It seems a rite of passage to encounter a pompous educator saturated in his own clout and impervious to a student’s efforts to do all in her power to understand the obscure material. When opportunities for extra credit remain dismal and nonexistent, countless review sessions wither my clogged brain, and meetings with the ruthless professor end in tears and defeat, I grudgingly accept the blaring “D” on my report card.The subject itself is insignificant in the broad scheme, but it is the reminder of self that I have gleaned from the course; an experience that impressed upon the moral of humility and the reality that GPA really isn’t everything, but it is the gray areas between the letter grades that disclose revelations and lessons of the student.” </p>
<p>It’s honestly devastating having to go through the entire application process again…And its increasingly difficult to get financial aid as a transfer. My family thinks I’m crazy to consider leaving such a prestigious school but I tell them they can take my 2.5 GPA and have fun with all the splendid geeks who roam the campus while attending lousy classes and anxiously awaiting graduation day just so they can frame a piece of paper that boasts 4 years of misery for a name brand. Another thing…Unlike most people here, I had fun in h.s. and was not sheltered like so many ppl were…They then come here with all their insecurities boiling in a cauldron of awkwardness, discover tequila and literally go off the deep end with their incessant need to “pre-game.” They take the fun out of socializing because they are literally unable to normally interact without a few shots of Cuervo. I wish someone had told me about the backward culture of this place before I took the plundge and signed my youth away.
Here’s more of what I wrote on my application…it was a meditative excericise to vent my thoughts as well…</p>
<p>"Northwestern University had been dream school since I was a na</p>
<p>^I really love NU but now I’m scared after reading some of the posts. Is it really… that disappointing and depressing? =/ I already committed to NU… hmm, well, I will make the most out of my years there. =]</p>
<p>You come across as dumb and self-important. My GPA, along with those of all my friends (whose social lives are quite vibrant) are quite fine.</p>
<p>I can’t repudiate your experiences, as I’m sure they could be honest. But suffice to say that I think it can be safely asserted that your experiences are in the minority.</p>
<p>Students, take this all with a grain of salt. There are malcontents everywhere.</p>
<p>Unless things have changed drastically in the past few years, GPA=2.5 is not the norm for Medill which was “embarrassed” several years ago when a report showed its massive grade inflation. Faculty members found themsevles defending their grading policy by saying something lame like “students are great and they deserve good grades”…</p>
<p>Arbiter213, you come across as abnormally sensitive to others’ posts and are a little quick to judge my intellect based on my unfortunate accounts. Obviously I am one person but I also speak on behalf of the slew of students who are unhappy with NU but can’t bring themselves to endure another college transition that may not guarantee satiety. I’m pretty sure prospective students who read this thread are smart enough to discern the benefits and downfalls of the school and not base their decisions on a few peoples’ arguments. Assuming NU has admitted independent-minded individuals, people obviously understand that experiences differ for everyone. So don’t embark on a self-righteous quest to demean people who are trying to contribute their own notions. Threads are meant for dissent and contradictions, that’s the only way people can get a cross-section of opinions. Congrats for having a good experience, and a good GPA on top of that. You’ll get far in life especially b/c GPA evidently determines the quality and intelligence of a person. Relax and let people ingest these posts as they will. In the meantime, hold your tongue, get off your high horse and don’t advertise yourself as yet another typical, unrightfully cocky person like so many others who litter this campus.</p>
<p>there aren’t too many times where i feel the need to defend northwestern, because believe me, there are many things about this place that really upset me. however, i must say that it seems that warywildcat is really grasping at straws in an effort to, i’m not sure why, make northwestern seem totally unappealing. i’ll address each point it turn. in the interest of full disclosure, i will say that i am only a freshman and have relatively limited experience to draw upon compared to other respondents. as far as teachers not caring about teaching, i have had a somewhat pleasantly different experience than warywildcat. my freshman advisor/seminar teacher was awesome, very engaged in our class and has been proactive in staying in touch with our group the entire year. even though she is the director of a subdepartment here, she found time to even organize a field trip for our seminar where we watched events associated with things we were studying in class as they actually happened. my first quarter language course (101-1, the lowest of the low) was taught by the director of the department, who was one of the most pleasant and congenial teachers i have had here despite teaching people that had no idea what they were doing. she still remembers me by name months later and we still converse when we run into each other. even though the class has been taught by a graduate student for the subsequent two quarters, the level of commitment has increased. for reasons that i could never understand, the guy is almost annoyingly proactive in scheduling extra meetings if we have struggled on a test, etc. i have had a couple of professors that just sucked at their job, and one that seemed apathetic but was at the same time at least professional. as far as gpa goes, as soon as conjecture about what grad school adcoms care about comes into the equation, i do not place any stock in the validity of subsequent points. warywildcat may know more than me in that department, but i certainly wouldn’t base my school choice on it if i were you.</p>
<p>it’s inarguable that nu is not the first choice of many. it was not my first choice, and i won’t lie that i was disappointed after admissions came back. has that made me judgmental? no. if anything, it has made me apathetic, and that is both what i regret and what i see among my classmates. nu is full of very smart, qualified people that were part of the very large numbers that were arbitrarily cut by the HYPSs of the world. it makes coming to nu kind of a letdown, no doubt. but i think the main result is diminished aspirations. nu is very preprofessional and a lot of the high intellectual aspirations of the students go by the wayside with the disappointment of the admissions process not going well. is this nu’s fault? not at all. it’s just the nature of admissions, and this effect will be seen among ivy rejects no matter where they end up. i went from lofty intellectual ambitions and contemplation of a career in academia to, well, a lack of motivation. i was very dedicated in high school, as were most, and coming here after a let down just made me wonder if it was all worth it. i am still doing well, but the motivation to learn is not the same as it was. in my experience, it is the same way for most and it is palpable and at times oppressive. however, i have also loosened up and am having a lot of fun here. i’m not sure how much sense that made, but take it for what you will. plus, i am certain that this atmosphere will begin to change because we are admitting better classes every year and the school’s prestige is growing, so nu will likely start to move up on people’s choice ladder. </p>
<p>this leads me to my major problem with warywildcat that makes me wonder what his motivation is. the citation of collegeacb posts as proof of this “judgmental” nature is ridiculous and can be easily explained. i had never looked at a gossip site until a few months ago. back then, juicycampus was the big show in town. every school had a very active board, from state schools to ivy league. the posts were just as acerbic everywhere. on stanford’s board there were even frequent posts calling a particular urm stupid and saying that she only got in because of her status. if that is not judgmental, i don’t know what is. when juicycampus shut down and the new site came up, many schools’ gossipers did not make the switch because they did not know about the new site. however, at nu, the switch was publicized in the daily in a piece on gossip sites and happened to coincide with a prominent greek weekend on campus. it is no surprise that nu’s board then became more active than other schools’. also, a prominent and healthy greek scene, like the one here in which wearywildcat and i participate, feeds sites like this. on top of all this, no one can say who posts on collegeacb, or even if all the posts are made by that gay dude that wrote rumorroyalty’s ghost. citing the number of pages is ridiculous and does not prove anything.</p>
<p>i don’t know about the sexual assault thing. assuming wearywildcat is speaking objectively, and his acrimony suggests his objectivity is debatable, then it is indeed a deplorable situation.</p>
<p>i do also have some beefs with nu, some major, others just frustrating aspects of student life:</p>
<p>the dorms and meal plans suck. my parents and i were speechless when we saw how small my room was on move-in day, and the place feels like a tomb. when i found out i had one of the biggest rooms in my dorm, my dad asked if the other people were living in squalor. you can read about the meal plan issues in myriad places, but, in short, you wind up paying about a thousand extra bucks more than if you were to pay with cash every time you went to the dining hall. on top of that, they are not very flexible and the best dining hall food pales in comparison to what is in evanston and chicago. the university solves the problem of their meal plans being a horrible investment by forcing virtually everyone in any type of housing to by one. pretty much everyone that works in my dorm’s dining hall is a jerk. that’s relatively minor but it makes overpaying for mediocre food that much more prominent when you have to deal with dining hall employees giving you the stink eye even when you go out of your way to be congenial with them. </p>
<p>i’m getting tired of this so i’ll be brief with my last few. if you would like me to elaborate just tell me.</p>
<p>there is a huge divide between north and south campus, both physically and culturally. it is annoying on both accounts. </p>
<p>the university uses chicago as a carrot to attract students but does little to nothing to make it accessible to us. it does not even match the effort of every other chicago area undergrad institution, and is even now talking about scaling back the efforts it does make.</p>
<p>the dean of students is crazy. what is seemingly hyperbole is really accurate. </p>
<p>in all, i am happy with where i am. would i have been happier somewhere else? i don’t know. the undergrad experience would have likely been very different, but in the end, it’s whatever.</p>
<p>iowejf - what dorm do you live in?</p>
<p>It angers me that #3 regarding sexual assault is seldom discussed. I know that the thread got off the tangent, but really? I guess this kind of attitude is what OP’s friend experienced when she tried to seek justice.</p>