Northwestern University Top Questions

I wish I knew that the campus was such a liberal place. I knew before I came that it was a liberal school, but it is extraordinarily liberal, which I love.

That I wouldn't be the smartest in my class anymore. That I would have to work a lot harder than in high school.

I wish I had known how academically challenging this school would be. Although I do love a good challenge, I do feel like sometimes it is overwhelming.

Nothing

I wish I had known how much time I would need to devote to studying and preparing for essays and exams. I also wish I had known how much personal responsibility I would have to take regarding my coursework and degree process, as advisors don't really help you plan out class-by-class what you need to do to graduate succesfully in your major.

I wish I had known that public transportation in Chicago is not very reliable and is extremely slow. Before I came to Northwestern Universit y I thought I could easily go into downtown Chicago but it takes at least an hour to get downtown from Northwestern.

I wish I had known how difficult and involved classes really are. Almost everyone who goes here was at the top of their high school class, so when you get together with so many people coming from the same level as you, the work gets much harder. When I got here, I realized that everyone knows as much as me, and most of them even more. It takes some getting used to, but in the end it is really helpful because there are always people here that will help you, if you struggle with some specific concept.

Perfect Size, Perfect Location. Trimester is an amazing way to take more classes, for shorter time and really dive into a specefic topic. Sometimes you want a big class, other times smaller classes are a better fit.

How different it would be from high school. Professors expect something completely different from college students that do high school teachers from students. The transition from high school to college wasn't particularly easy and there was nothing available to facilitate transition. Also, I wish I had known how big the Greek scene is here so I could better prepare myself for the superficiality of the campus that I had not expected.