Northwestern University Top Questions

The best thing about classes here at Northwestern is the emphasis they put on having full professors teach courses, rather than TAs or graduate students. This is lucky because a lot of the TAs and grad students are huge bitches, and our professors are insanely intelligent and know an unbelievable amount about the topics they're teaching you. Be careful because NU is on quarters, which means each grading period flies by, and if you get behind, it will be nearly impossible to catch up entirely.

Students at Northwestern spend most of their day studying but still have plenty of time to socialize. The professors love to get to know the students. Introduce yourself to your professor before or after class, go to office hours, or sit at the high-table (table full of professors) at lunch. The students are not competitive. They are always willing to help each other out and are at the university for an education rather than for a competition. The academic requirements are not that hard to achieve. The school for arts and sciences has distros. The system is set up to give you freedom to enroll in classes you are interested in rather than require you to take certain classes.

yes. favorite class: russian literature- teaches things that change your life, how you approach it/how you think. least favorite: math 300- higher mathematics, class about proving thereoms. Amount students study depends on major: sciences/math/engineers seem to study the most, humanitarian studies next, then theater and communications.

As a communications major most of my classes are pretty big with at least 30 people in them. I don't know any of my professors very well. The comm major is very rhetoric based and focused on learning for it's own sake. They don't teach us practical application very much, it's a lot more theoretical.

Depending on the class, I feel like you have to really participate to get attention from your professor. My favorite class was Engineering Design and Communications because of its hands-on, project-based structure- it really gives you a taste of the engineering design process and working with a a real client. My least favorite class was probably Engineering Analysis 4 because math is not my favorite subject, and it felt like I could follow along in class and I thought I understood it, until I got to the test and felt clueless. Students try to study everyday, but it usually doesn't work out that way. Class participation depends on the professor and what class is being taught. Intellectual discussions happen at lunch and dinner quite often. Students may be competitive, but are usually willing to help each other out as well. I think the real-world setting of Engineering Design and Communications was definitely a unique aspect of Northwestern's Engineering First Program. I switched from biomedical to mechanical engineering because I was not attracted to the new course requirements. (They added more signals and systems, molecular, and nanotech stuff that was on a smaller scale than I wanted to deal with.) Office hours are great when you don't understand why you can't get the right answer on your homework. The quarter system makes classes go very fast. I think the education depends on the teacher, but overall, it is very applicable to the real world as well as delving into other topics for your general knowledge.

No professor will ever know your name in a class of 200. I have enjoyed some of my communication classes, econ classes tend to be alright too, but often have foreign professors who don't speak English. Lots of kids spend their whole lives studying, probably to distract themselves from the other negative aspects of the school. Class participation is uncommon, conversations - intellectual at any rate - are uncommon. Students are not too competitive and seem to all have accepted that they are going to be middle managers and never go anywhere in life. I haven't taken any unique classes except for an intership class that finally got me off campus! Communication studies is great! Classes are relaxed and low pressure. And you actually learn quite a bit. You may even get to know a professor. Northwestern's academic requirements are fine. The education is geared towards getting a job.

Academics at NU can be a drag for some. NU requires Arts and Science students to take a vast array of classes to fulfill distribution requirements in 6 different areas (usually about 2 of these areas can be fulfilled by a person's major). To fulfill a distro, a student must take 2 classes in that area. NU also requires 6 quarters of language (2 years worth), along with 2 freshman seminars. Assuming a person's major fulfills 2 distros and the person has no advanced language credit, they have to take a total of 16 classes outside their area of interest. Most NU students take 48 classes while they're here, so the distros take up about 25{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} of a students time here, or about 1 year total. Since a year at NU costs 50k, a student's family spends 50 thousand dollars on courses not immediately relevant to a student's interest. This is frankly far too much. Classes are fast and often very rushed. Some are well taught, others are terrible. Social science departments generally get high marks for teaching, whereas low-level foreign language classes, math, science and engineering classes are generally bad.

Most of my professors know my name. The only ones who don't are the ones that teach huge lectures. All of them are approachable. The music school rocks. The students and faculty are awesome. All of my professors are willing to meet outside of class.

Hit or miss with classe; there are some great ones and some lousy ones. Registering can be a pain in the neck. It is it all of work but you hope that at least sometimes the class will be worth it. Profs do make themselves available to you, but they also think that their class is the only class in the world that you are taking. You can gear your classes towards more job oriented classes or for general learnng purposes...it all depends. Advising also depends on your major. Students have to be proactive about a lot of things but I guess here they are anyway.

Yes, professors know my name. I take English and History classes, though, which are smaller. The best class I've taken here was Reading and Writing Poetry. I'm not a poet, but it was small, intense, and the most I've ever learned in one quarter. My least favorite class was probably an American Government class that I took to fulfill a requirement--and even that was a great class. Learning here is geared toward learning, not getting a job (at least in the English/History departments).