Unhappy at Northwestern :(

hinsdale1
Wed, 09 Feb 2011 11:37:32 +0000

Its not always accurate to assume that the group of juvenille biggots you encountered were NU students (could have been highschoolers visiting older siblings, etc which is very common) and even if they were NU students, you realize that they do not in any way represent the student body - which is very intelligent, diverse, and therefore open minded as a rule - and every campus has some idiots. You might take solace from the fact that the gay couple felt comfortable enough to hold hands on campus - which is still not the case on most campuses in this country unfortunately.

That being said, your comments concerning the atmosphere and vibe at NU may be more to the point. The reasons I selected Northwestern over Brown, University of Chicago, Dartmouth, Penn, Cornell, and Wash U were its amazing academic standards accompanied with the traditional “university experience” including big time athletics, fraternitys, etc. It sounds like NU may not have been the perfect fit to start.

Your less-than-perfect experience at NU seems more socially generated and this can often just be luck of the draw. You hope for a great roomate with whom you click, or to fall into a group that shares sense of humor, outlook, etc. but these do not always happen as hoped… on any campus. So you could see it as an challenge to try harder to locate those with shared values, interests… or try tranfering and starting over and hoping the wheel-of-fortune spins right into your social circle. I think you may find the grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence, and that taking some responsibility to improve your social efforts and widen your net through EC’s may be just as viable an alternative. Best of Luck either way.