Northwestern University

Northwestern offers students the unique opportunity to create their own pathways through a combination of diverse interests and perspectives. Its interdisciplinary approach encourages students to explore fields beyond their primary focus, allowing them to design a personalized academic journey. Whether through the flexibility of double majors, minors, or unique electives, Northwestern fosters an environment where students can tailor their education to fit their passions and future goals. This ability to blend multiple areas of interest is one of the reasons I’m drawn to Northwestern. The wide array of academic options allows students to cross traditional boundaries and approach problems from various angles. For example, a student interested in both economics and film could explore how economic principles influence media production, distribution, and consumption. This sort of cross-pollination is not only possible at Northwestern but actively encouraged, creating a dynamic space for intellectual growth and innovation. Northwestern also emphasizes the importance of diverse perspectives, both inside and outside the classroom. Through programs like the Global Engagement Studies Institute, students can apply their knowledge to real-world challenges, gaining firsthand experience while deepening their understanding of different cultures and perspectives. This kind of engagement allows students to use their education as a tool for positive impact in a global society. For me, Northwestern’s ability to combine a rigorous academic environment with the freedom to explore multiple disciplines aligns perfectly with my desire to create a meaningful, multifaceted career. I am excited to take advantage of these opportunities to pursue both my passions and future ambitions.

If you live in South Campus, you can avoid the party life, which is mainly up North. South campus is great if you want more of the liberal arts lifestyle, North is better for STEM. At first, the dorm bathrooms were regularly cleaned, but there was definitely an unexplained period of time when the bathroom didn't get cleaned for two weeks. There is a good variety of food at the dining hall, but not culturally diverse.

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I attended Northwestern as a student-athlete. A part of my undergraduate years was spent wrestling with depression and anxiety. During this time, I saw a critical issue of ignorance regarding mental health. Even today, many do not know how to help a depressed or anxious person, and this is especially true in collegiate sports. On the varsity team, I fought with the coaches to allow me to continue attending team practices because they were afraid my mere presence would negatively impact other players. As such, people’s good intentions can have adverse effects simply because they do not know any better. Although Northwestern has a dedicated mental health support program/office, I often heard complaints from fellow students that they were not effective enough. Although their referral services were quite good, I hope that their on-campus program will become more developed over time.

The main thing that drew me to this school was the dual-degree program. This was a major deciding factor for me, as I was allowed to pursue both a science and music degree at the same time. This program (and the quarter system) makes it possible for me to graduate with two bachelor degrees in five years.

I don’t feel like typing my opinion but Unigo requires me to :)

I loved my time at Northwestern. I was not only challenged intellectually, but I grew in greater knowledge of my identity and my purpose in life. The school offered me great opportunities to learn and be prepared for different paths of life. I found a community and a home and met amazing people in the process.

I can not imagine anywhere I would be happier. I have grown so much as an academic, as an artist, and as a person in my time here. The drawbacks come with it being insanely competitive, which can breed a toxic culture. Also, getting into clubs is insanely difficult, but once you're in they are amazing. I love my friends, and I love the motivation everyone seems to hold intrinsically to self-improve.

I want to share my experience with Northwestern in the hope that potential students and maybe even the university’s administrators will learn from it. Basically, I had a horrible experience at Northwestern, in large part because of my mental health issues and the university’s awful response to them. I went there about a decade ago, so it’s possible things have changed since then. I went to Northwestern mostly because it was the highest in the US News ratings out of the schools I was accepted to. I was very competitive with my friends to see who could get into the most prestigious school. To all the young people reading this: Please, for the love of God, do not choose your university like that. Forget about prestige -- it’s doesn’t matter. Think hard about who you are and who you want to be, and whether the schools you are looking at would be a good fit. Try to get a sense of what the students and the classes are like. I didn’t do much of that, and I regret it now. When I entered the university, I was a very socially awkward young man with lots of intellectual interests -- sort of a dork, frankly, although I did like to party a bit, and I was fun around close friends. I was determined to make the most of my time at the university to become a writer and a scholar. I was somehow placed into this tiny all-male dorm no one had ever heard of (it doesn’t exist anymore), where the other guys were oddballs like me. The dorm was very isolated from the rest of the campus social scene, but it was the perfect place for me. That first year was actually great. I made good friends and was passionate about my classes. I remember that I would get homesick for the university when I went home for breaks. If I had rated NU at the end of that year, I probably would have given it an A-. But sophomore year was like a “perfect storm” for me. I had been dealing with mental health problems for a long time -- in retrospect, severe anxiety (panic attacks) and depression, although I didn’t realize what they were at the time, and I was too ashamed to ask my parents or friends for help, which was a huge mistake. For complicated reasons, these issues came to a head in the first quarter of sophomore year, and I suffered a mental breakdown that exacerbated my social awkwardness and caused me to withdraw into myself. At the same time, my freshman year group of friends dissolved because our dorm was turned into a frat house and everyone scattered across campus. The physical distance and my mental health problems alienated me from them, and they all formed new groups of friends. I basically became this intensely awkward, socially isolated loner. I knew I needed help, so I went to the student counseling center early that year. They put me on antidepressants (which I don’t think I needed -- I don’t think my depression was chemical) and, after one or two introductory meetings with the person in charge, paired me with a grad student in psychology who would psychoanalyze me. I am extremely bitter about this to this day. I needed help, and the university basically used me to help a grad student practice being a shrink. The grad student clearly didn’t know what she was doing, and I stopped going after a few sessions. I descended deeper into mental illness over the course of that brutal winter. I would spend all day by myself in my single dorm room. I accept a lot of the blame for what happened to me socially -- because of my mental problems, I became a bitter, sarcastic, sometimes even mean person, just not fun to be around. This is what makes mental illness so difficult, I think -- it can be hard to sympathize with the person suffering from it. But I am adamant that NU did not give me the help I needed. I sort of pulled myself halfway out of this by the end of sophomore year, but my social anxiety was still a huge unresolved issue, and I had more or less lost my friends (this CAN happen -- college is socially cutthroat, and friendships will wither if you fall out of touch with people, especially if social interaction doesn’t come easy to you). The rest of my time at the university went on that way. I was brutally awkward, feeling adrift with no social circle. Every social interaction was agony. I tried “putting myself out there” and joined student organizations to make friends, but I couldn’t break through with anyone. By that point, it seemed like everyone else had settled into their own social circles and wasn’t interested in making more friends. I had fallen through the cracks. I felt like I wasn’t a real student at Northwestern, that I didn’t belong there. In the midst of these mental health problems, I neglected my education. I remained intellectually curious, but I put in only moderate effort in my classes and forgot about all the goals I came to the university with, such as learning languages. Northwestern was mixed bag academically. Some classes were very good, but many were very much not. You might encounter lots of “dud” classes if you aren’t careful. Also, the professors, with some exceptions, weren’t friendly or accessible to students. Here is my take on Northwestern students. Forty percent of the campus is Greek, and you will find that people in sororities and fraternities often treat those outside the Greek community with open contempt (especially frat boys). A large portion of the student body come from upper-class elite families, especially the coastal elite, and they can be very snobby. The student body, by and large, didn’t seem to show much intellectual passion. They didn’t seem to care much about what they were studying because they planned to go to law or med school. It was taboo to have conversations about political or intellectual topics. I’ll give an example. During spring break in my senior year, I went on a service trip with about a dozen other NU students (I would recommend this -- it was fun overall). One of them was this intellectual guy who liked to talk about history, politics, etc. Most of the people on the trip, especially a group of sorority girls, HATED him, talked about him constantly behind his back, and mocked him to his face. It just was not cool to be passionate about intellectual things. I don’t want to paint with too broad a brush -- there are lots of interesting and passionate people at NU, but they are the exception. I just didn’t fit in there, and I wish I had put in the research to realize that before I went there instead of just looking at US News. In my senior year I made another effort to resolve my mental health problems. I went to the student counseling center, and they told me there was a six-week wait for an appointment… it was my second-to-last quarter at that point, and it just didn’t seem worth it. Student counseling might have improved since then, but it was AWFUL when I went there. I ended up being adrift in my years after college, not knowing what to do, feeling a lot of bitterness about my experience, still struggling with mental health issues and escalating substance abuse issues which took years to fully deal with. A few years after finishing at NU, I went to a well-regarded graduate program at a state school, and I had SUCH a better experience there. The students were from all walks of life, mostly middle-class, a lot more friendly and mature (although this might have more to do with them just being older than an NU thing). The professors were so much more accessible, and I could get to know them! This just goes to show what a mistake it is to be blinded by a “prestige” name like Northwestern. I often get phone calls and emails from NU asking me to donate money as an alum… these infuriate me. They couldn’t spare anyone to help me when I was a student there and was dealing with serious mental health problems, but now they can pay someone to solicit me for money? It is outrageous. When I was a student, it would have helped me so much just to have someone qualified call me occasionally and ask how I was doing, if I was making any progress, and give me advice. My advice to NU is to devote the money you use for soliciting donations to your mental health services. It will pay off in the long-run because you will have happier alumni. I often wonder how my life would have been different if I had gotten the help I needed at NU. In the end, my experience there only worsened my anxiety and ruined my self-esteem and left me with all this baggage that I spent the next decade working through. NU might be a blast for people who want to go Greek, but if you are a sort of awkward, quirky, intellectual person like me, think hard before you go there. I hope this review helps people.

Northwestern is exactly what it advertises—beautiful, compassionate, and alive with curiosity and wonder. The campus is impeccable, the teaching staff is top notch, and Evanston is such a cute little town and very accessible from campus. I couldn’t be happier that I chose Northwestern.

I have truly enjoyed my experience here - they have great resources available to students and a beautiful campus. The professors have been wonderful, and generally make themselves available outside of class to provide extra assistance. There are a variety of career advising and course help opportunities available.

Northwestern University has laid the ground work for innovation. The Medill school is always up to speed on shifts in the industry related to journalism or marketing. What I love most about the school is we're able to apply what we learn in the classroom to the real world immediately. We're making an impact globally. This school has forever changed my career and will continue to do so as I work towards graduation.

While Northwestern's big on "student life" and pushes for diversity/inclusion, being a part of the school makes one feel almost displaced. The quarter system puts them off of almost every other school's schedules, greatly limiting time on breaks that could be spent with friends at other institutions. Within the school itself, there are many opportunities to get involved with clubs and events, but the time crunch students face due to the packing of an entire course in 10 weeks or less and the constant stream of exams makes it hard to balance much else alongside classwork. This balance is made even more difficult to keep in place as a good portion of the teaching faculty performs in a sub-par fashion, making the students work even harder to teach themselves much of, if not all, the material which they should be getting taught. Further, there is a push by the university of making it "accessible to everyone", meaning that even those in financial hardships can attend and not worry too much about being able to afford food and housing. The only issue with this is that the school almost entirely stops helping after admission. Grants and scholarships are given out to those who can't pay the huge tuition and fees, but then they're left to figure out how to get winter clothes, understand their living situation, and find resources on campus that'll help them through the classes they have to take that ask for 4 different computer programs and overpriced textbooks. For those who don't own a high-performance computer, the library computers seem to be the only option to use many class-required programs, as the "loaner laptop" system the school has in place is not only limited (1st come 1st serve basis), it is also inefficient and shrinking due to it being moved away from under the Student Enrichment Services into the main school library, all because of the large budget cuts the school puts into effect (as a result of them investing heavily into the athletics program which only benefits a small population of the school). This university has incredible potential to be a top institution, and to be part of one of the most helpful and most forming experiences some people may have in their lives, but it limits itself greatly simply because of poor management.

Northwestern University is an excellent institution that combines world-class academics with fun and excitement. Everyone here loves to have a laugh, and while we work extremely hard, we know how to balance our health, recreation, and time with everything else. A degree from Northwestern already speaks volumes, but you will also learn many skills that will open up doors bigger than the ones that your degree opens.

Northwestern University was the best college choice I could have ever made for myself. It is a perfect match and I know right now since it is summer break all of my friends and I are ready to get back onto campus. I am so happy to be able to call NU my home for at least the next three years, the only thing I wish that could change is how expensive going to this university is.