<p>What are your favorite/least favorite things about northwestern?</p>
<p>I’m a Freshman this year, so I really haven’t experienced much yet, but these are my impressions so far:</p>
<p>Favorite: Engineering programs, quarter system (I think it’s pretty cool), Big Ten sports ,beautiful buildings and scenery, academics in general, relatively small student population</p>
<p>Least favorite: Urban setting (Chicago, bleh), $60,000 a year with no financial aid (for me at least), and that’s about it. I can’t think of many cons!</p>
<p>Pros: Great communication, law, business, and engineering program. Fairly diverse. Near Chicago. </p>
<p>Cons: NONE</p>
<p>As an entering grad student who’s lived in California his whole life:</p>
<p>Pros: small student population, top business school, world-class faculty, Big 10 sports, Evanston, proximity to Chicago, great public transportation system (school and city).</p>
<p>Cons: winter.</p>
<p>Pros: evanston and chicago are great; well-recruited; quarter system makes double major easy; lots of brilliant and inspiring students & professors; TONS of opportunities to get really involved with something (clubs, volunteering, research, etc.)</p>
<p>Cons: winter is awful; students care too much about their grades, not enough about learning; north/south campus split; heavily self segregated population (though I imagine this happens everywhere); cost of living is relatively high</p>
<p>Pros: Evanston & Chicago, great professors, interesting & intelligent student body who are interested in more than just partying every weekend, but do that too. Social scene is not great but good enough (this isn’t really a pro, i guess). Lots of opportunities to get involved in interesting projects. McCormick has good connections with the industry, for job placement.</p>
<p>Cons: Quarter system is challenging and messes with your breaks because it doesn’t overlap well with other schools’. Winter is harsh but definitely doable (even for the kids from Hawaii). North/south campus split means I could never see a journalism or music student if I never wanted to. </p>
<p>This is off the top of my head. Also, if someone asked me what I liked most about my college, I would say the people (both professors & students).</p>
<p>bump…?</p>
<p>ya can we bump this up please</p>
<p>My con about winter is retracted as of now.</p>
<p>It’s been extremely mild and pleasant. I even took a half day at work last Friday to go ride 34 miles from Evanston to Chicago and back because it was 50F and sunny.</p>
<p>In addition to the pluses mentioned above, I’m impressed by the alumni orgs I’ve interacted with so far. The one in Boston is very active and the alumni base in general has very strong school spirit.</p>
<p>Pros: Quarter System allows you to take more classes besides pre-reqs, very talented student population, beautiful campus (IMHO), easy access to chicago (the el is an hour and the intercampus shuttle is 45 minutes), top tier academics with extremely well knowledged professors, involved extracurriculars and clubs, hefty research grants.</p>
<p>Cons: Quarter System assures that you will probably be taking at least one test, midterm, or final most weeks, Winter weather (although it’s been unseasonably warm the past few days), extremely competitive student grading, cost of attendance, breaks are different from all of your hometown friends’ breaks. </p>
<p>Pro/con depending on who you are: Social scene is heavily dependent on the frats - apart from that it’s mostly off campus house parties thrown by upperclassmen.</p>
<p>I know diff. strokes for diff. folks, but can’t see how being so close to Chicago is a “con.”</p>
<p>For those who don’t like urban settings, they can just go North towards Lake Forest and the surrounding areas for tranquil suburban settings.</p>
<p>“Social scene is heavily dependent on the frats” </p>
<p>Swimfan - are you a Freshman? Only Freshman feel that way, and even then it stops once Rush is over. Greeks are really very insignificant at NU unless you are one of them, especially after Freshman year.</p>