<p>I’m interested in majoring in economics, and possibly dual with computer science. I plan to go on to get an MBA.</p>
<p>I want to hear about the negative aspects of northwestern, specifically what things make northwestern better/worse than a lot of the other schools that someone like me would consider (upenn, uofc, cal, ucla, UVA, umich, hys) </p>
<p>Both academics and social life, please contribute if you can.</p>
<p>NU has NO weakness! Maybe CS isn’t as good as, say MIT, Cal, or Carnegie Mellon…</p>
<p>As far as double-majoring goes, NU is second to none. The quarter system and the fact that our normal course load is 4 courses, not 3, per quarter makes double-majoring extremely easy. You will still have plenty of room for electives. By the way, make sure to check out programs like MMSS, BIP, ULP, IMC cert, Kellogg cert…etc that would go well with econ if you are interested in career in business/finance. The breath of offering is astonishing and unmatched by any school of NU’s size.</p>
<p>A possible weakness for some students may be that the summer quarter is limited to visiting students or Northwestern students who need certain courses to graduate on time with their class. Other than for special programs, such as HPME, Northwestern may discourage early graduation. But Northwestern is very accommodating for double majors and a minor if desired. Northwestern University encourages summer internships as opposed to summer study. Northwestern students seeking summer study often attend Harvard’s or Stanford’s summer sessions, but pre-approval is required from Northwestern to assure course credit for summer study at either university. Dartmouth College is a good third option for summmer study, but the application process is lengthier.</p>
<p>Nothing except Evanston parking tickets.</p>
<p>I don’t know if you would call this a weakness, but I just read that aggravated assault and battery went up 29.6% in Evanston in 2007. In real numbers, attacks against people went from 98 (2006) - 127 (2007).</p>
<p>That is an interesting post as Evanston is an upscale shopping & dining district with very expensive homes.</p>
<p>^But the western part of it has poorer areas. The Chicago neighborhood just south of its boarder is pretty mediocre too (though not terrible compared to the South side of Chicago).</p>
<p>If your main focus is economics, then the fact that the CS program here isn’t as great as MIT’s or CMU’s should not affect you, since your ultimate goal is not to work in software. NU’s economics program is one of the top ones, so if you want to get an MBA later on, it will probably prepare you very well. (Btw, I’m doing the same double major, although I may switch to IEMS/Econ. We’ll see.)</p>
<p>though i have no experience with the semester system to compare it to, one drawback of the quarter system is that we seem to move at a ridiculous pace sometimes at the cost of going into depth in specific areas. on the other hand, it does have all the positives previously stated. in terms of double majoring etc., i came here for the particularly for the economics program and now might end up triple majoring.</p>
<p>socially, without commenting on the much discussed the greek scene, there is a definite mix of the kids who are very intense about doing everything right to get to the next stage of their “careers” (though i haven’t noticed this producing cut throat competition), and kids who are just laid back and just do what they have to do, and who i’m sure will also be successful.</p>
<p>“breath of offering” hehe. nice Sam.</p>
<p>“aggravated assault and battery went up 19.6%”. builds character.</p>
<p>i am not sure if we even have a cs major here. i remember they combined it to eecs recently. if you wanna double major with 2 different schools… good luck, and make sure you can graduate on time. i did max credits (5.5) for my entire freshman year and i just simply burned out since. i had to pull 3-4 alnighters weekly in average just to finish my problem sets, lab reports on time. its good to be ambitious, but you want to make sure you can handle it. and as someone mentioned above, you should definitely check out the kellogg business certificate program if you are interested in business.</p>
<p>and, the weather sucks here. it snows from october till late march.</p>
<p>“and, the weather sucks here. it snows from october till late march.”</p>
<p>Actually this year past Winter was an anomay - the Chicagoland area doesn’t get that much snow.</p>
<p>There’s still a CS major, but it’s under the EECS Dept. </p>
<p>Is the IEMS/Economics major more doable than the CS and Economics combined then?</p>
<p>there are two different cs majors, one in the engineering school, i guess thats the eecs one, and then another in weinberg. a friend of mine switched from the engineering one to the weinberg one because he decided he’d rather do weinberg requirements than mccormick ones- the cs classes themselves though are basically the same</p>
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<p>Are you joking? Maybe not compared to Minnesota or something…</p>
<p>^It’s true when it’s compared to places in michigan and the northeast, not just upper midwest.</p>
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<p>No, I’m not.</p>
<p>Here are the annual snowfall stats for Chicago in contrast w/ cities that are really in the “snowbelt”.</p>
<p>Up to 2002</p>
<p>CHICAGO,IL 38.5</p>
<p>BOSTON, MA 42.2</p>
<p>CONCORD, NH 63.8</p>
<p>SYRACUSE, NY 115.6</p>
<p>BUFFALO, NY 93.6</p>
<p>CLEVELAND, OH 56.9</p>
<p>Chicago doesn’t get the “lake-effect” snow or the nor’easters that the mid-Atlantic/NE states do.</p>
<p>Since 1980 - Chicago has only had 5 storms which produced more than 10" of snow (NYC probably has had that amount within the past 7-8 yrs.).</p>
<p>It just seems like it snows a lot - since once it snows, it tends to remain on the ground for a while.</p>
<p>i heard that people at northwestern don’t really do relationships?</p>
<p>I’ve been seeing my girlfriend since New Student Week. </p>
<p>Don’t believe the hype.</p>
<p>“A possible weakness for some students may be that the summer quarter is limited to visiting students or Northwestern students who need certain courses to graduate on time with their class.”</p>
<p>This isn’t true. Any Northwestern student can take summer classes. (I should know, I teach here, including in the summer.) </p>
<p>Here’s what we’re offering this year:
[Summer</a> Session 2008 at Northwestern University](<a href=“http://www.scs.northwestern.edu/summernu/]Summer”>http://www.scs.northwestern.edu/summernu/)</p>