<p>How intense is NU’s curriculum compared to Penn, Duke, and Columbia?</p>
<p>At the risk of sounding rude, I hope you understand the utter impossibility of answering the question. If I explain why, hopefully it will help you answer the questions that can be answered.</p>
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<li><p>What does “intensity” mean? Does it mean what is the difficulty of course material? The sheer quantity of course material? Does it mean how much students study? Does it mean the percentage of students how have to study? (note: there is a distinction between students who study 10 hours a day because they feel obligated to make their tuition dollars worthwhile, students who study 10 hours a day because they have no social lives and nothing better to do, and students who study because doing well on exams/papers actually requires studying)</p></li>
<li><p>What is the “curriculum”? Northwestern is an EXTREMELY diverse university…more so than the other schools you mentioned. I can assure you that many arguments have arisen over whether or not a Chem Engineer during Finals Week works harder than a theater major during tech week. That brings another can of worms because some majors (theater, journalism, and some engineers) are more about extracurriculars than others. Theater majors who don’t perform/work at least one show are at an extreme disadvantage. Aside from that tangent, the intellectual skills and rigors vary widely from school to school and major to major.
Even if that distinction didn’t exist, classes vary widely. US Constitutional Law or Politics of SE Asia are notoriously more difficult than Chinese Politics or National Security. All of those are 300-level Poli Sci classes. So if you want to take more rigorous and intense classes, you can. If you’d prefer to coast, that’s fine too. Aside from workload, class curves vary. Some classes (Bio 104: Diversity of Life) is set up so virtually the entire class gets a shade of B. So working hard is essentially pointless because the curve is highly concentrated. Other classes (most intro econ courses) are very spread out, so it would pay to study hard and jump ahead of a very disparate curve.</p></li>
<li><p>Most importantly - how on earth could a NU student tell you that they are working harder or easier than a student at Duke or Penn? You’re banking on one of us transferring to or from one of those schools to NU. Granted, that’s possible, but the low probability appears nowhere in the context of your question. I could (and would) say that NU students seem to be pretty social compared to students at academic peer institutions. However, stereotypes suggest that Penn and Duke are also pretty social. Stereotypes tell me that UChicago kids are nerdy, bookish, and very “intense”. Does that mean that if I went down to Hyde Park that I would swap bar nights for library sessions? I certainly hope not!</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Again, I’m pretty sure this is going to come across as me being rash and brutal, but I offer two points of consolation: I am notoriously rude to people and I hope you understand that schools cannot be pigeon-holed the way you want them to be. Colleges are not animated monoliths, and to treat them as such is to set yourself for a disappointment in the diversity of experiences and opinions at any given institution.</p>