The University of Washington - Seattle

Date: Jan 31 2005
Major: Mechanical Engineering (This Major's Salary over time)
Seattle is an awesome city; small enough to avoid lots of the problems that L.A., Chicago, or New York have yet big enough to have everything near by and interesting stuff to do (if you have $$). UW is a big, beautiful campus that looks just as good as the postcards you've seen. The student body (and the locals) are politically left and often have an "I'm right because I'm smarter than you" attitude. There are enough people (30,000 or so) that there is always something going on and there are guaranteed to be people you will make good friends with. The down side is that you have to make an effort to find these tings and interesting people. Frats and sororities have a presence on campus but don't dominate social life, thankfully. Partying is dead since our small "riot" in the fall of 2003, after which the local authorities created police "party patrols" and started enforcing noise violations and underage drinking with hefty fines. Also, the weather can bite. Seattle doesn't get real winters, just 8 straight months of gray sky and light rain.

Tidbits of advice:

1.) Live in the dorms your freshman year if possible, even though they're dungeons and you'll be packed in like sardines. This is the best chance you will have in your life to meet lots of cool people and be surrounded by them 24/7.

2.) Move out of the dorms immediately after your freshman year. They are ridiculously overpriced and you will appreciate having a room of your own.

3.) Hit the ground running your first year. If you wait until your junior or senior year to get into undergrad research or other extracurriculars you will have already missed out on a lot of opportunities.

4.) There are more services on campus than most people realize while they're here. The basement of Kane hall has a place to check out laptops and digital cameras, and a photography lab; there's a bike shop in the HUB; there's a pool in the basement of the drama building that nobody uses; the libraries will ship you books from other Washington and Oregon university libraries for free; etc.