<p>I recently accepted my admission to University of South Florida, rejecting Ohio State, Indiana University, University of Vermont, Michigan State, American, and others because it was close to family and all. However, I was wondering what any of you thought of the atmosphere, the town, and the overall college life in University of South Florida.</p>
<p>I just got back from the USF campus on Friday, so I may be able to help a bit.</p>
<p>The campus is absolutely beautiful with well maintained landscapes and beautiful tall palm trees, but the area that surrounds it is not so pleasant. Once you get past the University Mall and toward Nebraska Avenue, everything sort of goes down hill.</p>
<p>It's only about 5 minutes from Busch Gardens and Adventure Island (water park) which is convenient and the mall is right down the street, but other than that there's really nothing along Fowler Avenue. There's a few shopping centers, a CVS, a few restaurants and diners (most of which are very USF or Bulls oriented) a flea market and a slew of gas stations.</p>
<p>A few of my friends go there and complain that outside of campus, there's not much to do unless you drive 30 minutes to Ybor City, 30 minutes to Downtown Tampa or an hour to Orlando. The area that surrounds the campus itself is not what one would consider a "college town."</p>
<p>Since the college is a state school and 96% of the students represent Florida residents, you may feel out of place as someone coming from out of state. More than half of the students commute from campus back to their hometowns on Thursday or Friday and don't drive back to campus until late Sunday night. Also, most of the new freshman are going off to USF with some of their closest friends from high school so right off the bat some "cliques" may be formed.</p>
<p>Tampa itself is a beautiful place to live in with so much to do. No matter who you are or what kind of things interest you, you will always find something to do in Tampa. Overall, I think it's a very good school. It's one of the top 4 leading research schools in the state of Florida and, in my opinion, one of the top 5 schools in the state of Florida period. There's been a lot of growth over the past few years within the school and it's showing a lot of improvement.</p>
<p>You'll get the typical college life here with frats/sororities and parties, but you'll also get a good education for a great value (last time I checked OOS tuition was around $17k.) It's also a very large school (it ranked in the top 10 largest universities in 2006) so it will also be very diverse. I would do some research online and take a virtual tour if you've not seen the campus yet.</p>
<p>If you have any more questions, feel free to ask :)</p>
<p>Is there a lot of school spirit?</p>
<p>USF is a big and urban. 2009-2010 is the first year that freshman are required to live on campus unless commuting locally. The off campus living has negatively impacted school sprit, but when your football team plays bowl games and basketball is winning, things look up. USF is attempting to create a more collegial campus and will succeed.<br>
My D is accepted for 2010 honors. The school is what you make it.</p>
<p>There is more school spirit at USF nowdays than ever before. For example, over 5000 were at the USF/Notre Dame basketball game I went to Tues. night, the Sundome was rocking even with school still on winter break until next week. Notre Dame edged out USF 73-72 in a real nailbiter.</p>