Old Dominion University

Date: Sep 07 2006
Major: Business - Management and Administration (This Major's Salary over time)
The academic atmosphere is very lax. especially for the freshman gen ed classes, you have to try to be lazy to not do well. Teachers don't expect much from those classes. They do get a little harder as you go up, but if you show an effort to learn, you should pass. Business is a good major and most people major in it. Art has nothing, don't waste your time. They also have a good engineering dept, but most of those students and teachers are middle eastern. ODU has one of the largest NROTC (Navy reserve officer Training Corps) units in the US (most of them are pior enlisted) If you're interested in that, it's a pretty relaxed atmosphere with lots of opportunites to hold a leadership position. (If you want scholarship, get good grades, good PT scores, and talk to people. You'll probably get it.)

ODU has no culture. There is no defining group or activity that brings the students together. We have a damn good men's soccer team and a good number of people do go, but it's not something the entire campus gets excited about. ( think there's tryign to get a football team togther in 2010?) Campus cops will bust underage drinkers if they can. Norfolk cops will shut the party down if it gets too loud, but they usually don't turn anyone in. The school is surrounded on 1 side by the ghetto and the street smells like garbage and on the other side are the nice ritzy houses. There's a lot of diversity, but people tend to hang out with those similar to them. The teachers are diverse too: if you can't pronouce their last name, chances are they have a very VERY thick accent. Good luck understanding that class… Any campus music events are usually hip/hop. (but the Norva downtown usually has a good rock show every few weeks.) And don't let the Maglev fool you—a new "solution" to fix it has come up several times… and the final date it'll be fixed keeps getting pushed further back.

Norfolk is a very haphazard city; you'll have ghetto here, really nice apt complex there. Virginia Beach is 30 min away. Waterside (downtown) is good place to go as well as the McArthur Mall (3 stories). and DON'T travel through the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel during rush hour. Sometimes it can take 1 hour to get across those 3 miles.