Johns Hopkins University Top Questions

Hopkins students are often pegged as being addicted to studying, with no interest in having fun. The reality is that Hopkins students have a sort of "work hard play hard" mentality. While the week can be a lot of work, come the weekend Hopkins students really know how to relax and have a good time! All the things to do around campus make it easy to maintain a balance between work and play that fits each individual. For example, while a student may spend most week nights in the library, on Friday they will probably go to a party or hang out with friends, and have all weekend. Students find many ways to release the stress of the week during the weekend.

Hopkins students are often pegged as being addicted to studying, with no interest in having fun. The reality is that Hopkins students have a sort of "work hard play hard" mentality. While the week can be a lot of work, come the weekend Hopkins students really know how to relax and have a good time! All the things to do around campus make it easy to maintain a balance between work and play that fits each individual. For example, while a student may spend most week nights in the library, on Friday they will probably go to a party or hang out with friends, and have all weekend. Students find many ways to release the stress of the week during the weekend.

The stereotype of Johns Hopkins is that everyone is science driven and the social life is abysmal. However, that is not the case. Specifically, in my time at Hopkins I have met a variety of people whose academic interests vary along with their professional goals. An aspect of Hopkins that I didn't expect was the heavy presence of Greek life. Although a small percentage of the student population is involved in Greek life, most of the people involved on this campus are in Greek life.

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Everybody thinks that Hopkins is made up of competitive nerds that never crawl out of D-Level in the library. I think there are definitely a few of those, but for the most part, I've never come across too many. In fact, the majority of people I meet are friendly and happy to go out of their way to help out. It's a tough school--it'll be hard to pull through with your sanity, a social life, and good grades without a little camaraderie and late nights working on homework in your dorm common room.

One stereotype is that there is cut-throat competition at the school. This isn't accurate. Although, there is a little competition, it's certainly not cut-throat. It's very possible to find a person to partner up with for studying or to borrow notes from if you ever miss a class.

Stereotypes of Hopkins students usually characterize the student body as cutthroat and science-centric. I think that both stereotypes used to be true, but are no longer valid. Based on my experience, Hopkins students are motivated and ambitious, but not cutthroat. Students compete not with eachother but against their own expectations. Hopkins remains the best research institution in the US, but has vastly diversified its academic strengths in the past few decades. Many students come to Hopkins knowing only its science programs, but find once they are there that Public Health, Writing Seminars, International Relations or Economics is more interesting to them. As an undergrad, I see a huge range of majors and interests every day.

Most people think that Hopkins students are incredibly competitive and unfriendly. This is incredibly false and I have found the students to be one of the best attributes of the university.

Everyone is pre-med - totally false. International relations is a really popular major, and our Writing Seminars and Art History departments are among the best in the country. Most of my friends actually aren't pre-med and are very well rounded students.

A stereotype at Hopkins is that we are all cutthroat people that will do anything to succeed. Yes, we are dedicated and driven students. I have NEVER encountered anyone who tried to make me fail so that they could do better. In fact, I have done a lot of work in groups where people definitely try to help others understand the material.

The stereotype seems to be of a school with only pre-meds who spend all their time studying, but there's definitely a strong presence in the social sciences and humanities, as well as students who spend the majority of their time out partying.

That we're cutthroat, and spend all our time in the library. People do spend a lot of time in the library, but they also spend a lot of time on their extracurriculars/having fun. People aren't cutthroat, but they do definitely work hard.

The biggest stereotype is that we're all competitive, cut throat pre meds. This is very inaccurate.

People tend to think of Hopkins students as nerdy, stay-in-the-library-all-day type students. While this is may be true for 15-20{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} of the student body, there definitely is a social life at Hopkins if you are looking for one. Those who actively get involved and are looking to have a good time, have fun. There are tons of frat parties on the weekends and there are constantly events going on around campus. Your experience at Hopkins doesn't have to be one spend in the library 24/7; it can be as good as you want to make it.

The main stereotype is that everyone is pre-med. Am I pre-med? Yes. That being said, two of the most popular majors on campus are International Studies and Writing Seminars. Sure, with Hopkins Hospital, there are pre-meds, but people forget that the hospital isn't the only resource Hopkins has. We are a train ride from DC and New York, right next to the BMA, and have centers for study abroad all over the world.

People assume that students at Johns Hopkins are cut throat students who are completely concerned with grades and not about enjoying the full college experience. And of course everyone is pre-med. Neither of these stereotypes are accurate; yes students do take their classes seriously and yes we do have a lot of pre-meds, but there is a lot more that the students have to offer. For example, I am a writing seminars major. Few people know that Johns Hopkins has the second best creative writing program in the country. Also, we do like to have a good time here. Students frequently go out Thursday through Saturday and there never is a lack of parties or frats to go to. Of course if you aren't interested in that, there is no pressure to go out. There are always campus run activities going on and a large group of students attend.

When I first stepped on campus, my notion was that the campus was going to be mainly composed of students of Asian-American or Caucasian descent, with a lack of a major social scene. I was wrong on both accounts. First of all, the student body of Hopkins is very diverse, with many different ethnicities and backgrounds represented. There are many international students as well, which adds to the diversity and creates a great blend of cultures. When I came to Hopkins, my expectations for a great social scene were very low. However, within the first week of classes, my views changed. While there are definitely a group of kids who prefer to avoid the social scene and stick to the peace and quiet of their rooms, there are just as many kids looking to have a good time on weekends. There are always parties going on, and the whole student body is always welcome. The social world at Hopkins was one of the things that impressed me within the first few weeks of attendance in that I realized that the entire stereotype about great academic schools having poor social scenes was false.

At Hopkins, everyone is smart, whether they choose to be blatantly obvious about it or mask it with excessive imbibing habits. The majority of the student body is socially awkward, thus leading to the establishment of the "Hopkins 500", or the '500' students at Hopkins that are actually social and enjoy 'going out'. The figure in reality larger than 500, but this title exists to communicate the smallness of the overall social scene. There are many premeds, and while they are definitely competitive, I have experienced a slightly less cut-throat environment than I had prepared myself for based off of rumors/stories I had been told.

Not at all. We have pre-med kids like at every school, but the school itself is pretty evenly divided with 1/3 being natural sciences, 1/3 engineering, and 1/3 humanities/social sciences.

Whenever I introduce myself to people back home and tell them that I go to Johns Hopkins, the immediate response is "Oh, so you want to be a doctor?" And, while there ARE many pre-med students at Hopkins, my personal answer is always a resounding "No". Because of the world-reknowned hospital that we have here at the Hopkins campus, the basic stereotype revolves around medicine: students here are expected to want to become a doctor, and, as such, must study 24/7. However, this isn't at all an accurate stereotype of the school. There definitely are students who spend a good majority of their (free) time in the library, studying for midterms, but there are also many many students that participate in all the other activities on campus, from using the gym, exploring the local area, to partying (yes, we do have parties). However, it's pretty safe to say that many of the students that you meet here are hard-working and academically driven. Just not everybody.