Carnegie Mellon University Top Questions

lots of parties are fun and there are lots of people to meet at them

The christian organizations have a huge amount of members, some of the teams like Crew are also very large. I'm on the girls' frisbee team and I couldn't be happier. I could barely play before I joined but they teach everyone how to throw a disc and now I'm quite good. They are also very social outside practices. In freshmen dorms many people leave their doors open, but it declines with the year. Again, most people do not go to sports events and I've never been to a guest speaker event. The drama school puts on many good theatrical productions or Scotch and Soda (drama club) also shows musicals year-round. Dating? haha, well freshmen year there are a lot of things to go to meet people with the frats having frequent parties to recruit. But after that it's mostly whoever you happen to know and if you're looking for a significant other. I met my boyfriend at a party, but I know a few people who were friends for about a year and then started dating. I'm also happy to know that a lot of my gay friends recently connected with a partner (there are a few gay clubs to go and meet people). I'm very rarely awake at 2am on a Tuesday, but if I were it would be for fun. If I had an early class the next day I'd go to bed around 12, but I'd rarely stay up that late for work (unlike a lot of other students here). Carnival happens in April, it's a lot of fun traditional events like buggy races, booth building and almost constant drinking. Mid-way through the semester and definitely towards the end the parties slow down because almost everyone is too busy with work. I think only about 20{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} of students join a fraternity/sorority but they're good outlets for members and non-members to meet people. Most weekends I stay in and watch movies, but I'd like to be more active in going to clubs/parties. There are many good restaurants that serve food half-off after 11pm. Again, going to clubs tho is often hard because buses stop running and not a lot of students have cars to get out there.

The percetnge of the population that even has a social life is small. Within the first couple weeks of school you will either know personally, or recognize the face of every social person at CMU, or at least definitely in your year. At the same time, when you find that group, you will definitely have fun. There's a ton of fun people, some on greek life some not, who love to party and go out to the bars just as much as any state schooler does. At the same time though, you won't find much going on during the week. Everyone here works their asses off Monday - Thursday, and then the social people party hard on the weekends.

CMU has so many activities, organizations, and clubs that I could not even list them here -- heck I probably don't even know all of them since the list is so vast. The reason for this is simple -- if you can't find a club/organization you'd like to join, you can create it yourself and then apply for money and what not to the Student Body Government (look an organization). As far as a social life goes, well there is definitely the possibility of one at CMU (although not everyone exercises this choice, which is perfectly fine). Students can be found doing "normal" college activities (whatever those are...) on a Friday/Saturday night to entering video game tournaments, like Guitar Hero or Halo. Students can make more friends by attending school sponsored nightly events, which vary from week to week. As mentioned before, Oakland and Pittsburgh is full of a variety of activities to keep you busy. Sporting events, museum tours, shopping districts, etc. are all in/around Pittsburgh. Basically whatever you want to do is up to you, even if that means skipping all your classes (although I wouldn't recommend it).

The most popular social event of the year is Spring Carnival. CMU creates its very own midway and the greek community as well as other on-campus organizations spend weeks building "booths" to go along with the rides on midway. Buggy races also occur during Spring Carnival. Students are giving a long weekend to relax and enjoy the carnival before the stress of finals sets in. Carnival is like nothing else and is definitely something you have to experience to understand. Most students do not attend athletic events. The school of performing arts has shows playing on campus every weekend, with discounted student rates. CMU always has guest speakers and presentations and most are extremely valuable if you make the time to attend. There are also $1 movies (recent releases) in the University center on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights, with 3 showtimes each night. Some people party every weekend, while others will not party once during their entire time at CMU. Greek life can be a main part of a students life, or not part of a CMU student's life at all. About 10{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} of CMU students are Greek and nearly all who are involved with Greek life at CMU feel that it was the best decision they made in college, as it is very different at CMU from your stereotypical fraternities and sororities. And if you are awake at 2am on a Tuesday night, you are definitely in the library studying.

So this is where CMU sucks. the social life is tough. usually, you have too much work to do anything else. If you want to be an A student, you will be doing more work than fun. I joined a fraternity because it was too difficult to find students like me around campus. You will see your nerds and you will see the drama majors that are probably high dancing or singing somewhere random. Since I joined a fraternity it has not been so bad tho, I actually like CMU a lot and I would not change my choice. Also, the closest bar, Phi bar, started scanning ids so the population of students with fake ids is sad.

there are all sorts of organizations on campus, the most well known and active is probably the asian students association. ive met my closest friends by living closely with them in my freshman dorm, or by meeting them at group/organization meetings. ive also made many friends through mutual friends as well. carnival is the most well known tradition at cmu--classes are canceled for two days and its basically just a time to hang out with friends, relax, and party. there are different types of people who party at cmu. some people go out every once and a while on weekends, while some others go out every night. there are also people that never go out to parties. theres a wide range at cmu, and thats one of the things i like most about it. fraternities and sororities are well-known on campus, but they are by no means the most important social aspect of the campus. if you want to party a lot, its likely that youll either join one of these organizations or have many friends who do; but its not necessary to join one in order to meet people.

I'm involved in greek life and it pretty much dominated my social life. I met my closest friends because we lived close to each other in our freshman year dorm, and we all ended up joining the same sorority. Carnival is the highlight of CMU, and basically serves as the homecoming for alumni. It's a long weekend full of debauchery. People aren't huge party animals, but you can have fun if you look for it. The administration has been clamping down on the fraternities, so a lot of underclassmen now have fake IDs and head to bars on the weekend, to the upperclassmen's dismay.

Greek life is very strong and a good way to get involved- $1 movies if you dont want to drink

Theater is very popular, as well as when guest speakers arrive on campus. I am involved in Buggy Sweepstakes, which is a very big deal at CMU.