College is definitely what you make of it. When you enter college, you're still a teenager --- which means you still have time to learn, grow, and ultimately change as a person, and college is the perfect time to do that. Unfortunately, I couldn't see myself truly growing, intellectually or emotionally as an individual at OU. I came here out of state because I was offered a full scholarship here. Let's get one thing straight --- it's a state university, so the overwhelming majority of people are going to be from Ohio. However, it wasn't terribly difficult to find people out of state. The vast majority of OOS students are from the DMV area, Indiana, Michigan, Pennsylvania and New York. On my floor there were two people who were out of state as well, besides myself. A ton of people choose OU as a "safety school" and as a result there are a LOT of people who come here with all their high school friends/high school boyfriend/girlfriend, so at times you get an "exclusive" vibe and it can be annoying trying to connect with people who seemingly still want to be in high school. But you can definitely find people who are ready and willing to move out of that bubble, it just takes a bit more effort.
Ethnically, it's not very diverse either. A lot of Asian students due to an exchange program of some sort and then the overwhelming majority is mostly white students from varying suburbs of major Ohio Cities. I found that most of the other minority students really isolated themselves, just due to there being so little of them. The LINKS program is stupid and not even led by minorities, if you're not on a minority scholarship aka forced to be in it, don't.
OU's campus is stunningly beautiful, and so is the Summit (the apartments about a mile and a half away from OU), but the city of Athens is DIRT POOR. I don't really consider myself an especially spoiled or city girl kind of person, but it's ridiculous. Rundown businesses and desolate townies everywhere, it's completely depressing. Also, because the city is so poor, they make most of their money from overpricing everything. The CVS on Court Street is highway robbery. Don't go there. In fact, avoid Court Street entirely on Friday nights if dealing with handsy belligerent drunks and fratbros isn't your thing.
The parties are completely overhyped; do not go here if that's what you're looking for. Halloween is alright, but for the most part there were better parties during my high school years, honestly. If you're not a drinker or do any kind of drugs you're probably going to feel a bit isolated, honestly. It's a really liberal campus as well, so if you're liberal minded you'll probably like it.
In my department, I found there was only one professor who truly cared about the success of undergrads and he was a grand and a real treat to deal with. The rest whoever, were snooty, standoffish, arrogant and clearly more obsessed with their own personal research efforts. It threw me off completely and being such a small department I expected it to be slightly more welcoming. The science departments in general are pretty bad; it?s not OU's strong suit.
I'm transferring to OSU after this semester, because I didn't really enjoy my time here. There were a handful of nice people that I met and will probably miss, I tried and gave my best effort to like it, but it's just not my thing. I would recommend this school only if you're really from Ohio, or you're going to be in the Journalism program, which genuinely kicks ass.
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