Miami University-Oxford Top Questions

I have loved my 4 years here. I am by no means a typical Miami student, and I have been lucky to make friends with other people in the margins of this relatively homogeneous school. Still, I wouldn't have traded the people I've met here or the beautiful campus for anything.

Miami is overall a good school, and on the whole I'm glad I chose to go here. There just seem to be several odd things about it. It's very image-based, and this is reflected in the way students dress and behave, down to the way the campus and the buildings are designed. All the new buildings are designed to look really neat, but then you realize that they fail functionality-wise. Case in point: the 10 foot ceilings in my university-owned apartment. They look really cool, but the heating costs are so much higher, and it tends to be really cold in the winter. It's not very cozy. And all the wasted space in the new engineering building. A giant room with a staircase smack dab in the middle? TVs hung at random places that your eyes never bother to look? Why not! It looks nice, right? And that's all that matters? Yes, these things are very trivial. But I honestly think it reflects upon the rest of the university.

MIAMI ROCKS! It offers the best college experience hands down and provides students with the most well rounded experience possible.

Don't come here.

Ask more about school spirit and athletic events!

Miami is a great place to get your undergraduate education. Also, there are tons and tons of study abroad opportunities. Name a destination and Miami will set you up for a semester there.

I guess the thing I really want to express about Miami is to not get bogged down in the image. Looking on the surface, it is easy to see why Miami is labeled so harshly. But college, any college really, is absolutely what you make it. And despite the fact that this is so very cliche, you really have to just stick to who you are, and as long as you do that, you'll find out where you fit into the campus. Like I said, I really did not want to go Greek, but all my friends did. It was really crushing--as an 18-year-old, sitting alone in my room, suddenly without the friends I felt like I had just settled in with. It was really lonely for awhile, because they all had other things to do. But eventually, when things calmed down, the people who really were there to stay, came back. And two years later, I live with three of the people I met in my Freshman dorm, and have lived with since. They're my best friends, and we all have our separate activities, our separate paths; I went to Europe, some of them stayed in Oxford, some of us have jobs together, others don't. It really doesn't matter, because in the end, I did what I wanted to do, tried out things I was interested in, and found out that Miami fit me just as well as it fit the sorority girl. So, I guess, in parting, do try to look deeper, and see that even if we aren't so diverse on the surface, there is more to us than just the clothes. And Uggs, after all, aren't really so bad.

"To think in such a place, I led such a life" is the motto of MIami. After being here for two years and thinking about having to leave it in another two, that quote reprepresents everything I will feel and reflect upon when I leave this red brick road.

Parking on campus is a nightmare. You will get a ticket and it will haunt you until you pay up. For this reason it is a real pain to have a car on campus. Wait until you live in a house and have a parking spot to bring a car to school. Plus, Oxford is so small that you won't really need one. Speaking of housing... you have to live in dorms your freshman and sophomore year unless you figure a way to out-smart the system. Living in the dorms has it perks, but it also means you aren't completely free from supervision just yet. Once you get to live off campus your life will significantly improve. Living in a house with a bunch of people is a blast, and the ideal place to live is in what they call the "mile square." This is literally four blocks north and south of Uptown so you are close to everything. Most places to live in this square have humorous yet often inappropriate house names. Miami students celebrate a tradition called "Green Beer Day" because Spring Break usually falls on St. Patrick's Day. GBD is always the Thursday before break begins and means that the bars in Oxford open at 5 a.m. and everyone drinks green beer. The university is not very fond of this tradition but it is a lot of fun. If you are under, watch out because the cops crack down at the bars on GBD. The key to college success is balance! You don't need to spend all your time studying and you shouldn't spend all you time drinking, so finding a happy median will keep your parents and the cops off your back. Summers in Oxford are amazing; make sure to spend one taking a class or two. It is a whole new world. It gets super hot in August and very cold during the winter, but when the temperature is mild the campus really comes alive. Miami has "Monday, Tuesday switch days." This is just as confusing as it sounds, and is in place to balance the classes missed because of the holidays that fall on Mondays.