<p>I've never been to Notre Dame, IN, or anywhere else in the state, for that matter. What's south bend like? How urban is the school?</p>
<p>The campus itself is it's own town. There are two street actually running through campus, next to the football stadium and one behind the Admin building and near the power plant. It'' its own bubble, but in my opinion it is the best bubble one would ever want to be in. I loved it there.</p>
<p>Cool, thanks.</p>
<p>it is a bubble. it could be in new mexico, north dakota, georgia, or maine and i would not be able to tell the difference except through the weather. south bend is not one of america's prouder cities, and students rarely head off-campus. the campus is self-contained. the best dining hall in the country, sports facilities, beautiful lakes and pathways, classroom buildings, and libraries provide basically everything you need.</p>
<p>The people of South Bend hate the students and the school overall, even though ND is the largest employer and is basically keeping the city from devolving into a dystopian nightmare (it's already pretty close). A kid was mugged and attacked with a brick while he was stumbling home drunk one night (off-campus) and two other kids were shot in a drive-by shooting in front of a crappy little bar called Club 23...I'm not sure if the bar still exists. My boyfriend lived in these townhomes that were an enclave for ******y students, conveniently located next to an abandoned hospital and a meth lab. His roommates all had their cars broken into, and when they approached a police officer about it, they told them that they shouldn't even bother reporting the thefts because there's a "shooting every night" and they have more important things to worry about (which is apparently busting underage students for drinking). They told them to leave their car doors unlocked at night because the cars will be broken into anyway, and their windows won't be smashed in afterward. If you venture into Mishawaka, you will experience cosmopolitan eateries along Grape Road like Olive Garden and Buffalo Wild Wings, and numerous strip malls with stores like Meijer where you can make your beer and Doritos purchases. Occasionally you will see students who make the rare venture away from campus. They can be identified by their late-model Audi, Ralph Lauren polo, and their not-so-subtle mocking of "townies," or lower-middle-class residents who are stuck in this terrible city</p>
<p>Abandoned hospital and breakins every night? I think you should check out the stats in South Bend and a.) compare the area around the hospital with the NW and SW parts of town and b.) compare them to other rates of crime in urban area. It is not good is not what I am saying, it just seems you are greatly exaggerating.</p>
<p>I guess they won't be identifying my S as a ND student, seeing as his Audi is in the shop and he's been driving a 1996 Taurus for awhile...and will be for a long while (if it holds out!)</p>
<p>I also think lilowl was exaggerating. S Bend is an old rust belt city and like other cities, has its share of economic decay, poverty, and crime. I don't think S Bend is very attractive. There are some town/gown conflicts, but I do not agree that the people of S Bend hate ND and the students. There are an awful lot of ND fans in S Bend, and many employees as well.</p>
<p>ND is beautiful, gated, and insular. Definitely a bubble, and a gorgeous one. Barring snow, bitter wind, and a current wind chill of -38 (yes, minus), the above posters were correct--one wouldn't know whether it was Indiana or anywhere else.</p>
<p>SB is definitely not a great city, by any means, but I come from the Cleveland suburbs so I don't really object. everything a college student could possibly want can be found in Mishawaka, in terms of stores and restaurants (chains as far as the eye can see). there is a weirdly high amount of funeral homes in the area too. in SB the houses are pretty much all post WWII bungalows, and there are a lot of dilapidated strip malls and churches and parochial schools. the residents aren't stupid, they know ND is everything to the town. my favorite is the restaurant with a sign that says "eat like a champion today". you can tell the town is past its prime but how much does that really matter? if you prioritize location over education, well yeah... but then I think you have bigger problems</p>
<p>I'm not making it paramount, but there are certainly great schools which are also in amazing locations-Dartmouth, Princeton, Middlebury, etc. That said, I'm going to the College of Science open house next month, so I'll see ND and SB for myself. Thanks guys.</p>
<p>isn't Dartmouth in the middle of nowhere?</p>
<p>Or...if you want a real urban experience, you could hop on the train to Chicago. That's a huge plus for those of us who live in the Chicago area, being able to visit home nearly every weekend without breaking the bank.</p>
<p>There's a Ruth's Chris. So it isn't that primitive.</p>
<p>Colinization -
Report back once you have experienced ND. Let us know what you think.
S is a freshman at ND. We didn't know where ND was until we started looking at colleges.
So far its been great. Not too many reasons to go off campus (unless you're going to party) and not too much time with all the studying! Good Luck to you!</p>
<p>Dartmouth's in Hanover- a gorgeous, affluent, mid-sized town. Depends on your definition of "nowhere."</p>
<p>There seem to be a lot of incomplete descriptions of South Bend here. Here's one from a student and a person heavily involved in the surrounding area. </p>
<p>Yes, Notre Dame is in it's own bubble. This bubble is adjacent to South Bend. South Bend is a mid-sized city that is adjacent to the unincorporated areas of Granger and the City of Mishawaka. Generally, students go to Mishawaka to do their shopping and eating. Mishawaka is one of the largest economic coridors in Indiana and Michiana (Michigan and Indiana) and has most of anything anyone may want (except for good Chinese food). </p>
<p>South Bend has good parts and bad parts (as any city does). The South and West sides seem to have the higher crime rates, while the areas closer to campus seem to be the safer areas (probably because they are the more affluent areas).</p>
<p>Granger, and the parts of South Bend near Granger, are more affluent. Granger tends to be where the affluent professionals that work in South Bend live and is definitely a very safe area. Students tend not to go up to Granger though, because it tends to be where families live and most of the shopping or eating that students would want to do would be in Mishawaka (unless you want to go to the Ruth's Chris Steak House which is in Granger).</p>
<p>I would have to say, in addition to my brief description of South Bend, that lilowl paints an exaggerated picture of South Bend's negative qualities. Many people are misinformed about what Indiana has to offer. It might be interesting to note that not all Hoosiers or Midwesterners are hicks and rednecks. In fact, Elkhart County (the county directly to the East of St. Joseph County, has the second higher per capita of millionaires in America).</p>
<p>Elkhart Co. also currently has the state's highest unemployment rate, >15%, due to its reliance on the RV industry. red06's descriptions are accurate. Yale has New Haven, Duke has Durham, etc. There are many colleges that thrive in spite of less than stellar locations. Colleges that are in a bubble, such as ND, are usually beautiful and insular, and the town/city itself has little effect on student life.</p>
<p>I read some of the replies to my post, most of them assuming that I was exaggerating. Ok, maybe the whole “dystopian nightmare” accusation was a little over-the-top, but everything else in my post was the truth. My boyfriend really did live next to an abandoned hospital. Students actually have been shot and attacked with bricks. Police really did tell us to leave our car doors unlocked so the windows wouldn’t get broken in. I grew up in a **** town in the Midwest as well, so I’m not approaching this from a condescending coastal perspective. South Bend really does suck, and residents really do hate the students. My two dorm roommates happened to have lived in South Bend their entire lives, which is the main reason why I know about the level of disdain. I’m not saying that Notre Dame itself sucks–as it’s been noted, tons of schools are in bad locations–but I’m just saying that if the location of the school is important to you, you may want to look elsewhere.</p>
<p>My two cents: Notre Dame is worth attending regardless of the surrounding city, and the surrounding city is nothing special, but also not terrible. If you have ever been to Fort Wayne, Terre Haute, Rockford, Toledo, Dayton, or Akron, then you have also been to South Bend. It’s much, much, much better than Detroit and slightly worse than Cincinnati. It’s boring, but it has things to do if you seek them out. It has crime, but anyone with any intelligence can avoid it. Just don’t get drunk in public, walk alone late at night off-campus, or live in a skeezy apartment complex. I don’t know why an ND student would move off-campus anyway, because I can’t imagine living in a more inspirational environment than the ND campus.</p>
<p>This harping on South Bend is something I just don’t get. Here in the East, colleges will often advertise “only two hours from Boston” or “only three hours from New York,” and the towns they’re in are truly constricting (think of Williams or Wesleyan or Hamilton or Bates or Vassar or…). Notre Dame is on Rte. 90. You get onto it and put your mind on hold and in less than two hours you’re in one of the great cities of the world, the architecturally peerless Chicago, or (better yet) you board a train and catch up on your reading. As far as South Bend itself is concerned, it’s actually a large town with more stores and restaurants than one could need or want, and at least it isn’t one of those awful hothouse college towns (if you want to see a particularly stifling example of these, check out Princeton). South Bend is more like an old shoe- a little scuffed here and there but comfortable.</p>
<p>^ “Like an old shoe.” That is a nice way of putting it. :)</p>
<p>What do you mean by “hothouse college towns”? Do you mean a town where you can’t escape the college environment?</p>