University of Notre Dame Top Questions

Academics are challenging, but I believe Notre Dame prepares the student body to strive for the best from the first year.

The academics at Notre Dame are, overall, fantastic. It has a great reputation and phenomenal job placement. Interactions with professors can be varied. I’ve had a professor who invited the whole class over for dinner, and another who made kids cry for asking stupid questions during office hours. However, regardless of demeanor, all the professors and very knowledgeable and most have good teaching styles. As far as classes go, you will work a lot, though this work may manifest itself in different ways. Science/engineering students will have more homework, whereas Arts and Letters students will have more reading and studying. No matter what your major, you will put some serious time in at the library.

My econ professor complained about how only Neoclassical economists won the Nobel Prize. He spent fall break promoting his book in England. I love most of my professors, but some suck. I went to dinner at a professor's house, and I would love to hang out with them more if everyone wasn't so busy. Students try to do well, but would probably do anything to help another student out, which I hear is not true of other schools at our academic caliber. The first year of studies makes you take classes in a wide range of subjects, which some people don't like, but I really enjoyed. One of my sciences was astronomy. My history was on revolutions. My art was a film class, where we watched movies straight from the Oscar Best Movie nominees, like Slumdog Millionaire, Avatar, the Hurt Locker, and other obscure movies that blew my mind. You're probably afraid of our theology and philosophy requirements, but only the first one is standard (and ND theology is way better than theology in high school if you went to a Catholic school) and there are tons of interesting options for the second. There's definitely room to take random classes that interest you besides your major, and adding a second major or minor is probably more common than not. Classes are hard, but worth it. If you have a chance of getting into Notre Dame, you've worked hard before. If you're not trying your hardest, what are you doing with your life? We also have plenty of time to have fun, so don't think this is torture. Everyone loves life here, except for finals week. Haha.

Stduents study pretty damn hard in Notre Dame. The library is full almost all the time.

The class are challenging but will be challenging and worth it. The class sizes are not terrible but it depends on what your major is and the type of class. The professors are very willing to help and enjoy talking to you.

Academics across the board at Notre Dame are strong. While there are jokes around campus about certain majors being easier than others, pretty much every program is fairly rigorous and well respected. It does seem to be generally true that the engineers, science majors and architects spend the most time on homework and studying, but this is a generalization and has many exceptions. Classes tend to be fairly small, with the exception of the early prerequisites in the most popular majors (i.e., general chemistry or intro to international relations). It isn't very difficult to get to know your professors, and most are willing to meet with you at length to discuss both your coursework and the professor's own research and academic interests. The university requires freshmen to take some "seminar" classes that are strictly limited in size, which guarantees that you will get to know at least a few of your professors very well very early in your college career. While the coursework can be challenging, classmates are eager to work together and you would easily be able to find a study group for virtually any class, if you're so inclined. The course offerings are generally pretty good, although it varies some from major to major. Some are more flexible than others in terms of having fewer requirements and more opportunity for electives. From my own personal experience, the political science program offered a lot of opportunities to take classes that appealed to me personally, and the faculty went way out of their way to continue adding new classes that responded to changing current events (for example, I was on campus for 9/11/01. By the start of spring semester that year, the political science department was already offering a new mini-course on terrorism and the changing national security environment).

Academics here are obviously top-notch. Due to the highly selective nature of admissions, everyone here is something of an intellectual. It's nice to be able to have an intelligent, academic discussion with anyone on campus, though no one is overly-pretentious about it. I've had far more good professors than bad professors. Outside of some large pre-req classes, this isn't a college where you're getting four more years of high school classes. Probably around half of my classes have had 20 people or less, which is really nice. I'm a film major, and even though ND isn't really known for film, our department is awesome. We have some really great professors, lots of course options, and I know most of the majors in my class and the classes around me since it's not too big (nor too small). We have easy access to facilities and equipment that would be a pain to get in a larger film school since there would be so many students competing for the same stuff. We have class in an amazing new building, and everything is state of the art.

Academics are hard but worth it.

Academics are great. I have been in one class over 100 people, and its Psychology 101. All of my other classes have had between 15 and 40 people, which I love. Most professors are really eager to get to know you, but you have to make the effort. I had a professor who came to lunch in the student dining hall once a week to have lunch with his students. Although not typical, this is also not uncommon by any means.

Notre Dame focus is on undergraduates. That means there is undergraduate research available everywhere for science majors. As a sophmore I didn't know what I wanted to do for the summer. I simply asked my favorite teacher if there was room for a chemical engineering undergrad in his research group. He simply said yes and that was it. It is so easy to get a research job here. All my friends who wanted to do research have a research position here. The rest of my engineering friends have internships as sophmores. Professor's here are great and helpful. All of my professors know my name and I routinely talk to them outside of class. I have never had a class taught by a TA or someone that doesn't have a Ph.D. In the college of engineering students are extremely intelligent. The nice thing is that we are not competitive with each other. We are encouraged by our teachers to do our homework in groups. I always do my homework sets in a group of at least 4 people. It typically takes 2 to 4 hours to solve 1 problem in chemical engineering and most problem sets have 4 to 5 problems. So doing the homework sets in groups to split of the workload is extremely helpful because it reduces the time taken on homework greatly.

The academics at Notre Dame are very high quality. Professors are good and generally open to meeting with students who need help. People take studying seriously, but there is not too much of a competative atmosphere. The majors at ND tend to be very broad. Unlike a big state school there are not as many specific major options.

All my professors know me personally. Kids study anywhere from an av erage of 1 hour (business majors) a day to 14 hours a day (for the hard sciences, engineers and architects). Class participation is very common and students very often discuss intellectual topics at meals or in the dorms. Pre-med students are competitive, the rest of the students like to see classmates succeed and professors help foster this attitude. My most unique class was either Latin dance, fencing, or a class on J.R.R. Tolkein. Often professors invite students over for meals (especially thanksgiving and easter if the students have no where to go)

Classes are very difficult-professors are top quality and offer challenging courses. Students like to engage in intellectual discussion at all times.

Academics are taken seriously at Notre Dame, but I have never felt overwhelmed by the expectations, even though I was a chemical engineering intent. Classes vary from large lectures to small seminars; more of the freshman classes are lectures, whereas upperclassmen get to take more smaller classes. In the lectures, professors usually don't know who you are, but they are still accessible if you want to talk to them. Professors in small classes are very friendly and you can get to know them pretty well. My favorite class so far has been my University Seminar, a class freshmen are required to take. The classes are a variety of subjects, but they are all small, discussion-based classes with significant reading and writing portions. Mine was called "The Self and Society in American Poetry." Some of the discussions blew me away. We also got to write our own poetry and everyone shared their poetry with the class in some of the coolest moments of the semester. The professor also had our whole class (about 15 students) over to his house for dinner one night. This class was one of the reasons I decided to switch into the Program of Liberal Studies, a Great Books major in which all the classes are in the seminar format. I realized that I thrive off discussion of big ideas with other people, as opposed to just sitting in a chair and having a professor talk at me for the next 50 minutes. The Program of Liberal Studies is a unique opportunity at Notre Dame; it is a cross-disciplinary major in which students read the "Great Books" and various other primary texts, discussing everything from philosophy to political science to literature to psychology in the classes. This is one of the majors that is geared more towards learning for its own sake, along with most of the other Arts and Letters majors. The engineering, business, and pre-professional tracks are more geared towards just getting a job after graduation.

I love studying at Notre Dame. The classes are challenging, but in a good way. If you don't like to work or don't like to learn, you really don't belong here. Students study a lot, but there is still plenty of time for extra curricular activities and relaxing with friends, especially on the weekends. Professors do learn your name, and class participation is almost always required. Most of my classes are small, which I love, but you do have to attend class, do the assignments, and be ready to answer questions/discuss the readings/voice your opinion. The intellectual conversations often carrry on outside of the classroom too, either with your peers or with your professors. Most of the professors I have had are very open and love talking to students outside of class.

There are a lot of small, individualized classes which is great for learning. I would say most professors learn all the students' names unless the class is a very large lecture (which aren't too common to begin with, which is great) There is a lot of academic competition but that is not necessarily a bad thing. It can help people grow and not just be content in their comfort zone.

my professors do know my name and i have not had any really huge classes. my favorite classes are my architecture classes because they are very interesting to me. my least favorite was my first math class that was hard and very impersonal. there are tons of intellectual conversations outside of class and it is clear that everyone her cares about their grades and works hard at school. I don't think that many people are competitive, and many people like to talk and contribute. i have never felt threatened in either of these respects. My major is AWESOME. the architecture program is so unique in that everyone travels to rome junior year to learn.

Intimate classes, no matter how large teachers tend to know everybody. Most classes are challenging, they require a lot of work but teachers reward you adequately. I always feel like the work is worth it. I'm in the business school which was recently ranked #3 undergrad business program in the nation, which is awesome.

Obviously, we are held to really high standards.

Not many of my profs know my name, but that's because I'm still in large base courses that everyone takes (ie Bio, Orgo, etc.). Class participation is very common. The most unique class I've ever taken was my first semester freshman year, called "Love in Traditional Chinese Culture."