University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Top Questions

I was in the graduate school, and I found out that the grad professors are extremely helpful. They are more than willing to help students even if they have to squeeze students into their schedule. Generally, the faculty, staff and even students are extremely nice. You wont believe it until you are in the community.

The Campus changed my outlook on life, allowing me to reconsider my standing in life and to delve in to my inner self worth. The shear size of the campus is overwhelming. I never realized the size of UNC until I visited some of my friends at Elon, Wake and State. Though the campus is large, it guarantees that there will be place for you in the UNC community. Once you have stayed on campus for a few days, you will never want to leave. I'm home for the summer, and I want to be back at School already! Never in my life did I yearn for the schoolyard during my summer. I miss it all. The campus, the Arboretum, the stadium, Franklin street, and most of all my friends. I don't believe there will be another time in my life where i will be so well connected with my friends as when i am at chapel hill.

At UNC you will definitely work hard, but every night you can find something fun to do! Tuesday and Thursdays, and of course the weekends, you will most likely be out of Franklin street with friends or watching a Tarheel game! UNC students have a reputation for being fun-loving, out-going, and all around Carolina-obsessed. UNC is the quintessential college town. School pride is a must for Carolina; everyone bleeds Carolina blue!

the best things about unc are the diversity, the expert faculty, the hundreds of organizations that you can join, the stimulating environment, and the wide variety of classes. i took a lot of women's studies courses just because they were so fun and interesting- courses such as politics of sexuality, feminist pol theory, women in rome. i also loved jewish american lit (even though i'm not a jew), american history after 1865, politics of latin america, and civil rights law. the size can be overwhelming at first, but it is such a friendly campus, that it all feels like home and family. do try to avoid taking all intro classes though in any one semester- a 400 person lecture is not fun. try for more obscure courses where you can really connect with students and faculty- more fun and better grades! there is a special camraderie among fellow tarheels, so much school spirit. of course, in the time i was there we also had several tragedies that brought us together. in my senior year, eve carson was shot and killed in town and the campus rallied together in a way i'd never seen. while i was there, we also lost our school mascot, two students that were messing around and fell out their dorm window, and had the strange incident where a former student drove his suv into "the pit"- a big gathering place, though no one was seriously hurt that time. Yet the staff and students pull together at these times and can take a tragedy and find something good they can do to prevent such tragedies or to just support each other. We also had so many fun events that I remember. We won basketball championships. We have the "pit preacher", crazy squirrels, big name bands like wilco, and political leaders from all over the world come here to visit. My favorite times? Just laying in the grass in polk place to read or nap or get some rays between classes.

Even though UNC is a large university, there is a sense of community that I found to be quite intriguing when I came here three years ago. Depending on your likes and dislikes, any one can find his or her niche within the larger, extremely diverse social scene at Carolina. If you're looking to join a sorority or a fraternity, be absolutely sure that that is what you want because even if you do make friends outside of the Greek scene, you will not hang out with them. The Greeks will, by and large, only socialize with others who are Greek, and although not all of them are like this, many will not give you the time of day if you're not in a fraternity or sorority. Chapel Hill is the quintessential college town--cliche, I know. But, it is true. Franklin Street is the heart of Chapel Hill, with restaurants for any taste and plenty of places to drink if you're 21, or, sometimes, even if you're not. As you probably are aware, UNC athletics are a great focus of the students, and of the administration (for obvious reasons). School pride is rampant and infectious. There is no more exciting time than March in Chapel Hill, and the basketball players are gods among men, according to most students. It doesn't matter what you have going on; if the Duke game is on, you're in front of the television, screaming and carrying on about how the referees are biased because Duke paid them off using the interest from their multi-billion dollar endowment. I think the best aspects about this place are just little things: sitting in Polk Place with your friends on warm spring afternoons; having a drink at Top O (Top of the Hill) after a long, stressful week; or, just strolling through campus on your way to class thinking to yourself, "Wow, what a beautiful place". Although, take that last comment with a grain of salt because the construction going on around campus is most unattractive and bothersome.

UNC is a school with a great deal of pride and the administration definitely tries to pass that on to students by setting higher standards. Students have a lot of school pride as well. I have found that students are very smart and have the ability to work hard, but do not always want to. They tend to be spoiled about the subject matter and more outspoken about what they don't like--they tend to whine a bit. There are a few students who feel the need to brag about being a part of trends such as how much they like foreign food, where they have traveled or what they believe politically, or their sexual preferences but it comes off as ingenuous. There are students who stay away from that and just want to be themselves and they tend to be much more cooler and more interesting.

i love how this is a large school that feels small and personal. i see the same people all the time, and everyone is very friendly. chapel hill is beautiful and there is tons of stuff to do within walking or biking distance. this is definitely a pedestrian town, so if u hate walking or are disabled, chapel hill is probably not the best place for you. my only real complaints are that advising is awful so you better makes sure u no the curriculum yourself and there has been no predictability for tuition increases for out of state students.

The best thing about UNC (and you'll hear this repeatedly if you decide to come here) is that it's like a family here. The moment you step off of campus and enter another community, you'll find someone who went to UNC or is a UNC fan and suddenly the two of you are best friends--there's a sense of school pride that immediately becomes a part of you that you'll never be able to shake, especially if there's a Duke fan around! And of course, we have the best basketball team in the nation. :) The worst thing about UNC is the constant ongoing construction. Because it is the oldest public university in the U.S., buildings are constantly being remodeled, so it's a never-ending sight to see orange cones and yellow tape blocking off buildings and pathways. It's a little sad to see a different campus everytime you return to UNC from being away for awhile. But you really can't beat the feeling of pride when you say "I go/went to Carolina." People are always impressed, and it's nice being able to say you went to a university that people all over the country--and the world--know about. Chapel Hill is definitely a college town, but it's fun and relaxing. Everyone goes to Franklin Street during nights and weekends to eat, shop, and/or drink. But nothing beats the feeling of being at a sporting event (most notably, the Dean Dome) and screaming along with 20,000 other Carolina fans to root on our athletes.

I know that it is the goal of a public university to grow so that they can provide opportunities to as many people as possible, but there is also a certain expense that goes along with this. In trying to raise money through sports events and the like, commercialization and corporate sponsorship play a big part, and these things, I think, somewhat prevent a real sense of community to be created within the university, because instead of trying to truly create a diverse place where students can open up their minds to new experiences, the university spends its time just trying to promote a certain image to everyone watching them on tv or coming to shop at student stores. Perhaps I'm just small-town, but another thing that bothers me is the student culture that exists here. Instead of having opportunities to express individuality (although there are a handful of these), the most common things that a student can do to bide their time is join school clubs, participate in the unreflective "party culture" that exists everywhere in America, or study. Though these things may have good qualities, we should not count out that at least their current mode of existence has some downsides.

The best thing about UNC is the close knit atmosphere it provides. There are 16,000 Undergraduates and 10,000 Graduates attending, but it feels like you are home because everyone treats you with respect and courtesy. I spend the most time in the Union studying or hanging out because it's a nice central location and the atmosphere is nice. UNC is a college town with all of the benefits. UNC is great for hanging out and enjoying the south. UNC's Administration is not always loved but they do the best possible job given the circumstances. I especially appreciated how the handled the murder of Eve Carson. They really tried to unite UNC and affect healing. School pride is a must. If you aren't a Tar Heel there's no reason to enjoy it. I'll always remember the first time I went to Late Night with Roy. The atmosphere was perfect. Everyone complains about the laptops and the food, but given the deal we get there's not much to complain about even in that.