Ohio State University-Main Campus Top Questions

Love to party and drink. It is indeed accurate. Upon the of Osama Bin Laden which isn't a reason to party and drink, more than 3000 students gathered, drank, and partied that night!

At Ohio State, there really aren't pre-set stereotypes of students. There is an immense combination of types of students on the campus of Ohio State. There is an amazing athletic program for those students wanting to participate in sports. There is also Greek Life available for those who want to make Ohio State a smaller community. But overall, students care about their studies and want to excel in school.

I believe that Ohio State has a stereotype of only caring about sports (especially football!). I do see how this stereotype exists, because a majority of the attention and coverage goes to the sports teams. There are definitely lots of students who are interested in things other than sports though, and there are over a 1,000 students organizations on campus, so it is really easy to find your niche!

It is hard to pinpoint an exact stereotype at a school like Ohio State. Many students often comment on the surprising number of international students at the school.

Ohio State students seem to fall subject to the typical "football school" stereotypes. Whenever I tell people, including people like my friends' parents, that I go to OSU, they invariably smile and make some comment like, "Crazy parties, huh?", followed by a sly wink of Lucille-Bluth proportions. And sure, school spirit runs rampant, the game-day streets are flooded with scarlet and grey, people consume mass quantities of alcohol at crazy frat parties. But here's the thing: at a school this large, there is bound to be a huge variance of student life. On the first really warm day of spring quarter last year, I distinctly remember sitting on the Oval and watching the Renaissance Fair club in full medieval garb dancing a jig, next to a pack of bros playing ultimate frisbee, next to a table of environmentalists peddling fair-trade hemp bracelets. As a pseudo-liberal, artsy English major dweeb, I certainly do not fit the perceived "OSU stereotype," and yet I have always felt completely at home here. Among 50,000 peers, there is no dominant stereotype.

I think that people often assume that Buckeyes are crazy (which we can be), but people here are truly remarkable. Considering that this is such a huge university, and students from all backgrounds and walks of life attend here, it is really a friendly campus. People hold the door for you, they help you pick things up if you drop them, they give you their seat on the bus...you get the idea. All people can find a niche to fit into, which is the beautiful thing about this university.

There are many different stereotypes of students at Ohio State. We have such a large student population that you can almost participate in conflicting stereotypes if you found two groups you enjoyed. Me, I play roller hockey at Ohio State and have always been an athlete so I have a lot of friends who are jocks. When I first transferred to Ohio State as a junior, I joined a fraternity. So I have fratstar, "bro" friends and jock friends who constantly make fun of each other and make fun of me for belonging to each group. I also have some stoner friends, almost every kid does at college. The best thing about Ohio State is that you are never confined to any one stereotype. If you don't find your calling in one group of friends, there are hundreds of other groups eager to recruit you to join them, whether it be playing sports, joining the Greek community, or reciting Beat poetry on the front lawn with your stoner friends.

The biggest stereotype about Ohio State students is that we are rabid, drunken, douche-bag football fans. We call our team "we" and we hassle anyone that dares to wear anything but scarlet and gray on gamedays, especially students from M!ch!g@n. There are plenty of those types around campus, and lots and lots of folks find a new-found love of sports once they become a Buckeye. But Ohio State is simply too big for the entire student body to be sports fans. If you want to join 100,000 of your best friends in the Shoe every Saturday, that's great. If you want to spend the day reading rare books at Kafe Kerouac or trying one of the fabulous brunches along High Street (I recommend Surly Girl Saloon), I guarantee there will be dozens of other students just like you.

People think of Ohio State as a party school, and I guess that's definitely here if you want it, but, because of the size of OSU, it's able to offer a lot of unique opportunities that smaller universities just can't. We have big name speakers (like President Obama last year) we have internship connections with big businesses, and we host a lot of unique events. OSU can really give you anything you want, you just have to go out and find it because it's all here.

Being a Big 10 school, people think that the only thing we care about is sports, especially football and basketball. I personally know a lot of people who don't even care about sports and solely came to OSU for the vast educational opportunities. Don't get me wrong though, we Buckeyes show the best school spirit of anyone out there.