<p>South campus is pretty bucolic, rural, dovetails into MSU's experimental farms, many funded by the USDA. The academic part of south campus reminds me of U-M's north campus: modern, woodsy, technically oriented (engineering, hard-sciences, Comm arts) spread out and comparatively quiet. City of East Lansing, along MSU's northern rim, is pretty suburban in character, somewhere btw Royal Oak and Birmingham housing/median income wise). Ive never been to Traverse City, but somehow that doesnt sound like an apt comparison to E.L. as being the cultural mecca w/in Greater Lansing Ann Arbor busy and highly cultural, of course-- feels like a corner of New York City peeled off and plopped in the middle of farmland. You're right, the built up (see walking) part of E.L. is about 5 blocks-by-2 blocks, but much quieter -- it's much different from Ann Arbor in this sense, as it's the cultural, bedroom/suburban district of a fairly sizable city metro area of 500,000. </p>
<p>Although overall campus is sprawling, it breaks down by academic specialization, w/ the old, northern part (N. of the Red Cedar river) dedicated to liberal arts. Plus, keep in mind, that the modern dorms on the Southern and SE portion of campus have classrooms/faculty offices in them, so many 1st & 2nd year classes can be taken w/in the dorm or complex/sub-campus (and thats outside, even, of the better known residential colleges like James Madison, Lyman Briggs and the new liberal arts one under development. Btw, because of MSU's bigness, classes have 20-minute passing periods btw classes as opposed to the standard 10 minutes of most colleges.</p>
<p>First of all, if you were able to get in to U of M you have what it takes to do well there, unless of course you feel that your high school was not challenging you enough and it was pretty easy to get the grades that got you accepted. Otherwise as long as you apply yourself you will do well there. Secondly, I have a daughter who goes to MSU. It is challenging, let me assure you. My daughter did not go to UofM because it did not have her field of study and she is not a UofM wannabe. MSU simply doesn’t get the credit it deserves when it comes to academics. I have another daughter who has also gotten into UofM and faces the decision of which school to go to in the fall. Its a shame that she worries about what people will think of her if she turns down UofM for MSU. But what really matters is that she has to literally live with the decision she makes. If her gut is telling her she feels more comfortable at MSU for whatever reason then I believe that is where she should go. It doesn’t mean she is trying to “get out of harder work” she has been at least a 4.0 student at a challenging college prep high school all 4 years; she has what it takes and would do well at UofM. It just means MSU is where she sees herself. AND she WILL get an excellent education there. People, especially parents, get their egos to highly involved in these things. My daughters are just as smart and could succeed just as well as many kids who go to more “highly regarded” schools but for their own personal reasons they chose a school that is considered to some a “notch below” . It will not be a measure of their success after graduation…of that I am sure. There is a lot more to being successful than grades and intelligence. Hard work, people skills, motivation, perserverance just to name a few. Bottom Line : do what your gut tells you,work hard and you won’t be sorry with whatever choice you make.</p>
<p>“Oh, and coffeeandcoke - you’re definately right. Outside of Michigan and Ohio, there’s not much of a difference in prestige/name recognition”</p>
<p>is this comment sarcasm? Outside of Michigan and Ohio the difference in academic prestige is even greater. MSU does not have much of a national reputation outside of basketball. A quick glance at the number of OOS students at each school will confirm this.</p>