University of Wisconsin-Madison Top Questions

wisconsin is the most amazing place in the world. i haven't talked to anyone who can imagine going anywhere else for their college career. we legit do feel so privileged and it's hard to understand other people's college careers that aren't quite.. as exciting. the school is huge.. but like i said.. it's impossible to not see someone you know. after about the second year it just seems normal to walk down the street and see 6 people you know in a stretch of 3 blocks.. even though there are like 41,000 people at the school! the more you become involved with.. the smaller it becomes. i spend most of my time at the library..surprisingly. the remainder of my time is spend on the terrace, on bascom hill (in the spring and fall), and bouncing from bar to bar or eating place on state street. it's indescribable. plus.. the student body seems to have a pretty similar mindset on school/party balance.. so people wil WANT to go study w/you by the lake before you go out.. or they'll want to go tan on bascom hill just to be worthless. the town is 100{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} a college town. it's interesting though.. because the futher down state street and closer to the capital you get.. the older the crowd gets. that's where the upperclassmen and graduate students often get internships.. and where a lot of the jobs after graduation are centered. it's a college town.. but there's opportunity for "adult sprawl " WI admimistration is.. there? i think they're about as good as i'd want them to be.. but i'm a pretty independent person. you can always talk to an adviser and they'll tell you what you want to know. there are a ton of resources on campus.. almost so many that if you just look up what you want on the wisc website.. you might find a club/student org directly related to your question and bypass the administration completely. school pride is rediculous. alumni school pride is even more rediculous. i haven't even graduated yet and i'm already a member of the wisconsin alumni group just so i can easily be informed as soon as i do gradutate!!

Sick school, great college town, amazing athletics (best college sports town last year), school pride is rampant, unbelievable location (between two large lakes in the capitol of Wisconsin), one of the best party schools in the nation, and best of all an incredible education that rivals Ivy League schools for the price of public universities. When people hear that I attend Wisconsin I always get a positive response. When you've said Wisconsin, you've said it all!

Wisconsin is awesome! People are easy-going but fun and also very smart. You can find your niche easily and there is so much to do. It's just a great town and everyone has school pride. Sports games are a blast!

The best thing about wisconsins is the college town atmosphere, and the tight knit atmosphere on campus. At many universities i visited, i felt as if students were there simply to get an education and then leave. Not so at the university of madison. Students feel a strong sense of community through activities such as homecoming, badger sports and all campus activities such as mifflin street block party. The college town atmosphere is something that many of wisconsin's peer public universities lack. Madison is the seat of government in the state of wisconsin, but much of the activity and entertainment comes from the university and our students. The tight knit community of students thus produces the tight knit community of madison around it.

The best thing about Wisconsin is the amount of school pride students have. The sports are amazing, people go all out on game days. People here care about each other... if you're a fellow Wisconsin fan, you're a friend, and you're welcome to hang out and have a beer on any porch by Camp Randall during the football season. 65 year old alumni do beer bongs with us and yell "asshole" at the Michigan fans walking down Breese. Basketball is the same, people go crazy with body paint, and it's not strange if you're wearing a red wig that looks like a Troll doll's head... it's so fun. Madison is such a great college town, it's constantly buzzing. The only real complaint I hear from people is how large the campus is. It's very spread out and it takes 45 minutes to walk from one end to the other, but I think the beautiful location makes up for it. Lake Mendota to our north, Lake Menona to our south... it's gorgeous. We're a special breed here, and we know it.

People think Wisconsin is so big, but it's really not overwhelming. It really seems to compartmentalize itself, and there are so many places to find a home - the dorms, extracurriculars, in your department, at your job.

According to one ESPN analyst, Madison is "the best college sports town in America" and I would definitely agree based on my experiences. Home football saturdays are practically religious here (to be fair, they are on most big football campuses), I mean what else would get 30,000 students out of bed at 9am on a saturday. But what makes Madison unique in terms of sporting events is not just our pre-game parties on football saturdays, but the fact that we have many highly-ranked sports teams that compete all year. Our b-ball team has been performing well over the last few years and the Grateful Red bring an energy not found outside of Cameron Indoor Stadium. My favorite sport has to be Men's Hockey just due to the clever student section, where else do you do dance to the Time Warp, watch little kids play at intermission and then scream Sieve at the top of your lungs for minutes! Aside from our sporting events to keep us entertained outside of the classroom, the city is probably the most beautiful city in the country. Campus is sandwiched between two pristine lakes and stellar views abound from many spots on campus. When the weather is nice, the Memorial Union Terrace, overlooking Lake Mendota, is an awesome spot to hang out, listen to music and enjoy a brat and a brew (Our union serves imported German beer on tap!) Being at the heart of an urban center like Madison does have its advantages, you seemingly never run out of things to do from live music venues, multitudes of unique ethnic restaurants , museums and other attractions. The Metro bus system provides an easy way to get around (free bus passes for students!). Being at such a large school does have its advantages. While many small schools try to promote their make your own major or single class programs, chances are Madison already offers what you want (the famous example is underwater basket weaving). Besides, being able to just disappear into the crowd is useful sometime and it means you are more likely to find a group you enjoy hanging with. I could go on and on about the pluses to large state schools, but they all basically fall into the same category: opportunities, opportunities, opportunities.

Whenever I tell people I go to Wisconsin, they say it's an awesome school, they wish they went there, and that they've heard amazing things about Madison. There is a huge amount of school pride - everyone loves Bucky! It's a very large school but it doesn't feel large. It's not an urban setting but it's also not rural, so I wouldn't describe Madison simply by saying it's a college town. It's way more diverse than that and has more to offer. One thing I'll always remember is Badger game days - so much fun!

There are a lot of amazing things about Wisconsin. You can't walk down the street without seeing red. It's a really big school, so it's important to find "your niche". There are a million oppurtunities for that though - Greek life, academic clubs, community service oppurtunities.. the list doesn't end. Lately, there's been a lot of crime on campus which has really been scaring students. But administration is good about keeping students updated, and reminding us constantly about safety tips. Other than that, the worst part about Wisconsin is the snow! And how horrible the plowing system is here..

This is a big college! Find a niche right away, and become social - there's no reason to sit in your apartment/dorm room all by yourself. Even if your hobbies include dressing up like a costume animal and pleasuring yourself to Japanese pop music - you're probably among friends. There's more to do than be a drunken waste on the weekends. Sure, there are certain social groups which are centered around this, and there's nothing wrong with doing it on occasion. But we have so much going on in Madison, there's no reason not to explore the city, exercise (find the SERF right away, there's nothing like a free place to work out that's just filled with hotties), take in the arts, or simply find a cozy place to read. If you can, get out of living in the dorms - it's totally for suckers. (although, if you must live in the dorms, Liz Waters has the best rooms, cafeteria, view and location of them all. Avoid the Southwest dorms, as they're inhumane. Avoid the Lakeshore dorms, because their location is horribly inconvenient). The Bassett neighborhood is TOTALLY safe, even with the recent murder that happened there - shit happens in any large city. Avoid the State St/Langdon area unless you don't want to ever sleep. Listening to drunkards scream all night loses it's charm after a while. The Gorham/Johnson St. corridor is freaking sweet. It's on Lake Mendota, has an awesome park, and a really cool mixture of students and young slackers. Plus, the Caribou is the best fucking thing on this Earth - you'll know what I mean if you come here.