Unhappy at Northwestern :(

gocats14
Wed, 09 Feb 2011 03:11:51 +0000

Hi all,

This is my first time posting on here. Although I have been an avid follower of the CC forums since my senior year of high school, I have never actually posted anything until now :)

So, I’m currently a freshman at Northwestern and not completely happy with my experience here.
I was lucky enough to be a questbridge finalist, and was offered a spot as for early decision after being deferred during the match round.

Coming from LA, I find the campus and community more conservative that what I had hoped it would be. Being gay, I was so used to having a group of close gay friends back home. Although there are obviously a number of gay students here at northwestern, it feels a little exclusive to the communications school (Theater, RTVF, Comm Studies) and it’s really hard to meet like-minded friends. I’m an econ (tentatively) major in WCAS.
And the student body as a whole isn’t very gay-friendly as people might think. It’s very fratty and what I would think of as a mini-version of a traditional state school experience. People use gay slurs all the time (i saw a gay couple walking, holding hands on the street, and a group of guys yelled out at them, four letter expletive, etc.). It really does make me feel out of place. It deosn’t help that my roommate is not particularly friendly either. He was a little homophobic at first, and although it’s ok now, it does still get tense.
I’ve tried attending the Rainbow Alliance meetings, but their outreach seems a little limited and comprised of only a small group of dedicated students.
I’ve definitely made a lot of great friends and we go out and have fun, but I still feel really out of place.

Also, I feel at odds with the Greek Life/Sports scene that seems to dominate the campus. I had hoped to go to college where people are more interested in learning about new ideas and focusing on their futures rather than worry so much about which party they are going to get into this friday/saturday night. I thought I had left all that behind in high school.

Being in Evanston also feels so far removed from the city. Yes, it’s only a 45 min train/shuttle ride, but 12 miles is a lot farther than you think without a car. Life seems to be very restricted to the campus + downtown of evanston.

Last thing is probably the weather. Winter blues puts me in a funk. I’ve never been in snow weather before and it gets PAINFULLY COLD. But not a big deal, I’d still love a school with bad weather if I really loved the school.

Now I’m looking to transfer but I don’t really know how I should go about it. Obviously I;d want to go to a comparable school or better. I’m really interested in going into IBD when I graduate. Northwestern doesn’t have a business program, but there’s a lot of people who do it here. I’ve met some AMAZING ppl though my business frat, many of whom are really into Investment Banking.

A school I think I’d really love is Brown. Their open curriculum really appeals to me. But their transfer admission is need-aware. And being questbridge, idk if I’d have a chance?
I’m also considering Columbia, Penn, Stanford, Yale, but those all seem to be really out of reach.

I’m in the process of filling everything out, but it’s really stressful with schoolwork + job + everything else in life. Should I stay at NU and see if it gets better? I’d regret not applying tho, because I probably wouldn’t transfer going into my junior year. Are there other schools I should be considering? Financial Aid is really important, preferably a questbridge partner school. Is this even a good reason for transferring to begin with? I probably don’t need any safety schools because I wouldn’t want to leave NU to go somewhere that wouldn’t provide me with as many opportunities for my future.

Sorry for the long post. Any and all comments are GREATLY appreciated.