The University of Wisconsin - Madison

Date: Apr 04 2004
Major: English (This Major's Salary over time)
Madison is a great place to be. Beautiful campus, a variety of personalities (in both students and just plain old Madison residents), more political activity than the average college campus in this country. A variety of choices is what defines Madison—you can spend a Friday night drinking and partying, seeing a play or band, or having coffee with an intimate friend…and you're guaranteed to not be ostracized and to have a shitload of fun. UW-Madison, for what I can tell, is a great "transition" school. You get the irresponsibility (at least in comparison to getting a real job) of attending classes, and the strength of interdependence with other students. But you also start to merge into that responsible adult…you have to be extremely independent on this campus if you want to survive.

Negatives? Well…three that I can think of personally…

Coming from a very culturally diverse area, it's very strange and quite bothersome still to look around and only see white people. Though I myself am caucasian, I grew up in an environment that fostered an understanding for all races adn ethnicities…and I realized how important it is to interact with people from diverse backgrounds. Granted not everyone here is from Minnesota (oh yeah, those accents are…shudder) but…there are a lot of 'em.

A lot of large lectures in comparison with a smaller school. If you're used to being one of the overachievers, used to being the student who contributes in class, you can forget about continuing that reputation in most classes unless you want to be that annoying kid that sits in the front row and raises his hand constantly. I'm spoiled to that effect, I'm used to small classes, getting attention from my teacher…it's hard to be anonymous. HOWEVER, enrolling in the honors program is quite helpful b/c you get smaller class sizes and interaction w/Profs…pretty cool.

It's cold! It's freakin' frigid for about 4 months to the point where it's hard to leave the house. Not to mention our heat didn't really work, so… bring lots of blankets and long underwear. The summers, however, more than compensate for this difficulty.