Student Body Personalities

Colleges and Universities A-Z Northwestern University
1

<p>Are the students at NU really intellectual and full of elitist talk? I go to UChicago right now but I am hoping to get into NU for next year. Everyone at my school is smart, but there are those select few who are completely high-brow. They say they only like to talk about intellectual things and can't bare a conversation about something "stupid." Others barely watch TV or know anything remotely "popular" or "commercial." Is NU more about brainy people who actually pay attention to pop culture and are more normal, if you know what I mean? More easygoing?</p>

<p>So many here at UChicago all speak another language and are really good at Calculus and read a lot of really obscure books and trash anything that isn't of the highest calibre, etc. And the classes are the types that are only meant to make you think, not prepare you for a specific job. I suppose I'm just wondering if NU is more about training and normal people who actually know that Tom Cruise is nuts these days, because a girl I talked to today said she didn't even know about Tom Cruise's stunt on Oprah and then on The Today Show with Matt Lauer.</p>

2

<p>hey...im looking into u of c. why do u want to transfer out? what else dont you like about the school?</p>

3

<p>Although everyone is really nice here at UChicago, they analyze everything. We watch Star Wars, they have to announce how scientifically inaccurate every little thing is. Or have to rationalize about mental illness not being a mental disease but simply a "preference value". I'm trying to eat breakfast this morning and a guy from my house brought up a paper he read that was so amazing - it was about mental illness being a fig-newton of your imagination and that it's really, in the thick of things, just a preference value and that society doesn't prefer people who act different, so they assign a label to them as being "insane" and give them a disease when they really don't have a physical disease!</p>

<p>I prefer talking to people who are smart and have a knowledge of a lot and aren't really immature, but I don't want to be surrounded all the time by people who are so intellectually elite that they can't sit and have a normal chat without critically analyzing the meaning of life and how quantum physics applies to what they're doing at the moment!</p>

<p>Also, our Aims of Education address stated once more that UChicago is all about the liberal arts and getting a broad perspective of "canonical texts" and understanding life. We shoot the arrow now but we can paint the target later. Something like that. I don't want to get a degree from a school that teaches me how to think but doesn't teach me how to apply that specifically to any one career. They pride themselves on being a school that actually produces smart people vs. "other schools" which train you and that's it. I'm interested in film and I'm not going to get to do anything substantial at UChicago in film if I stay.</p>

<p>I'm already nervous about the classes because it's so high brow and everyone seems like they're ready to spew BS to sound smart or something. There's this one girl who always seems to aim for that perfectly brilliant, wonderfully worded answer and to sound so passionate about the topic, using hand gestures and everything for emphasis - it's kinda annoying. I mean, Plato, Aristotle, Descart, Dostoyevsky, etc. These are the canonical writers read at UChicago and nothing else will be touched - nothing known. UChicago prides itself on being obscure and producing super brainy people who will probably do nothing with what they major in. I think even though UChicago is #1 in the Princeton Review for best academic experience, it probably has the highest Undecided declarations because people here seem to float among so many different majors. </p>

<p>In all honesty, I am not the type who is super high brow and elitist. I'm very commercial - Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest was my favorite movie of the summer vs. the UChicago people voting for Snakes on a Plane or no films at all because they don't watch TV or movies. I mean, tonight was Grey's Anatomy's season premiere - it was taped because me and another normal girl and another girl were desperate to watch it. Sunday night I have to be back for Desperate Housewives. I cannot miss those shows. People at U of Chicago scoff a little at such preferences. They'd rather discuss how fluent they are in Spanish while delving into how they studied enough Italian to have a good understanding while also taking Chinese this quarter yet also having known a fair amount of French. They're just too smart here that it's disconcerting if you're not interested in the real brainy side of things.</p>

<p>You may wonder why I came to UChicago. One, the city of Chicago. Two, the name value and how it may help my transfering chances. Three, I was annoyed at U of M's financial aid office but I wasn't annoyed with UChicago's financial aid office. But I fully intend on applying to NU as a transfer for next fall.</p>

4

<p>In short, yes, people are more "normal" at Northwestern. Join a sorority, that way you can watch Grey's Anatomy and Desperate Housewives in the house every week, it's practically a ritual.</p>

5

<p>I wanted NU originally anyhow, but I blame my high school for not giving me a lot of opportunities and so my app didn't look too exciting. Therefore, "there were just so many more qualified students" than me. Plus, I don't want to have to take gym classes here at UChicago because they're required if you don't pass out of their stupid PE placement tests. lol</p>

6

<p>It sounds like you should have done your research, because all of the things you said about chicago are well known.</p>

7

<p>There's no way to gauge how "intellectually annoying" a group of students going to UChicago will be. Yeah, smart people are said to go to UChicago. But smart people go to NU. And yeah, I knew about the PE, but didn't know how stupid the tests themselves would be nor the fact that I would get stuck with two quarters required of PE. And, I tried asking around about what UChicago is really like and I always got the same gibberish answer. It wasn't until I had access to the behind-the-scenes stuff on the internet and such that I found out how goofy UChicago can be. It's great fun but it's also a difficult place to be. My main concern is just going to NU or U of M for film. That is the primary point of the transfer anyhow.</p>

8

<p>yes, northwestern is exactly what you're looking for if that's what you dislike about uchicago; other people who have transferred out of uchicago for those exact same reasons say northwestern is perfect</p>

9

<p>Would somebody that finds many of the things listed about chicago necessarily feel out of place at northwestern?</p>

10

<p>finds them appealing that should say.</p>

11

<p>Here, it's nice to be surrounded by smart people, but when everything they say can be spun into something intellectual, it gets old. </p>

<p>For example, we watched Monty Python's Holy Grail last night - after the scene with the witch and weighing her to see if she weighs as much as a duck so they can burn her, the people I was sitting with began discussing this. </p>

<p>At the end of the film they wrote a proof on a dry-erase board about what makes a female equate to a duck, meaning she equates to wood which floats like a duck, which means she must be a witch if she can float like wood, and if she floats like wood, she can be burned because wood burns! lol.</p>

<p>You can't watch Star Wars without them picking apart every little inconsistency. Or my first day of my Sosc class all the students were saying the book which most influences them regarding political thought, so they're tossing out Plato or Aristotle or Adam Smith or the Bible and they give these grand reasons for being so influenced. Half the time they sound like they're full of hot air or something. It's like so many feel they have to show off.</p>

<p>And there's quite a few who act very odd. They're very, socially, "unique" such as this one kid who is a 1st year, but 19 as he spent a year in Shanghai/Beijing in China because he loves anything Chinese and thinks learning Chinese until he's fluent (which he is) is just a fun thing to do. Every time we watch a movie he acts like it's the first time he's ever seen a film. He gets really excited like a little kid and moves around a lot. He kinda creeps people out a bit because he's so "enthusiastic" about EVERYTHING. And he'll poke into people's conversations to tell them they're wrong and this is what it really is, or this is what you're saying wrong, etc. He also likes to do Calculus at lunch because "there's nothing better than math with your food" as he said, or he'll just have to explain for half an hour why he bought a specific poster and the artist's (it was a print of a painting) specific reasons for painting it the way he did. </p>

<p>It gets old when I don't have anything to add to their supremo-intellectual talk. But many of the second years and on from our house have told a few of us to not be bothered too much by the elitist talk because it's mostly show-off tactics. Which makes me feel better. I'm simplistic and laid-back; I am the same way in a class. I don't think it is necessary to over-complicate everything the way so many of the students do here. Can't they just watch Star Wars in peace?</p>

12

<p>i understand.</p>

13

<p>I am considering both schools pretty heavily but are the students you encounter like that just because they are freshman (I think you are one) and are a little confident of themselves? Although people may be too elitist, is it overly competitive or does the school system itself foster it?</p>

14

<p>lol everyone at nu luvs grey's anatomy i havent seen it once</p>

15

<p>which school are we talking about</p>