University of Michigan-Ann Arbor Top Questions

There are more activities in Ann Arbor that there are days to experience them. Like Mother always says: 'Try everything once'. At the same time, it's possible to get involved with one scene, never branch out, and be perfectly happy.

There are SO many student organizations on campus. I'd guess that about 75{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} of the student body is involved in some kind of student group. One of the most popular organizations is Dance Marathon. This is the kind of organization that offers so many opportunities for leadership and involvement. Everyone can find a place there and everyone is doing good things. All money raised is donated to help children, and they really do. As their slogan says, "Making kids smile, Maize and Blue style."

There is no most popular group on campus. A lot of people are involved in community service groups, political groups, identity groups (LGBT, etc.); a lot of kids play intramural sports. I work for The Michigan Daily Arts section as an editor. It's an extremely laid back job where I get to hang out with a lot of people like me. The Daily has a reputation of being full of pretentious left-wing liberals, but that's just the opinion section. Most of the members of the Arts section are just funny people who like bringing their skewed perspectives on pop-culture to the paper. Dating scene? Doesn't exist. No one "dates" at U of M, in the traditional sense. A lot of guys are content just having casual hook-ups, with no obligation to take her out to dinner or buy her anything. But if you do date a girl, you usually just ask her to "hang out" and watch a movie or something. The traditional date at a fancy restaurant is reserved mostly for long-term couples on birthdays, anniversaries and Valentine's Day. I spend most of my weekends going to parties and hanging out with my friends. Last weekend: Thursday I played beer pong (a popular drinking game) at my friends house and watched a movie. Friday and Saturday I went to a party with my friends. I'm currently single, so I spent most of the night throwing my incredibly tight game on plenty of coeds. No luck, but maybe next weekend... How important are fraternities? It depends. There are only three reasons to join a frat: to make friends, to hook up with girls in sororities, and to have an organization that looks good on your resume. Frats are useful bc they give you a built-in social network, and assure you'll have something to do (and cute girls to hang out with) during the weekend. However, they take up a lot of time and tend to cut you off from your non-frat friends. Frat guys aren't as bad as stereotypes indicate, but they're very territorial--just try to get into their party w/o an invitation, or store your coat in one of their rooms. In general, frats are just another option besides going to house parties: frat parties are bigger and more exciting, but it's harder to get beer, esp if you don't have a vagina. i'm not aware of many frats doing anything constructive, although there is a community service frat. There's also an asian/indian etc. frat as an additional kind of identity group.