The Georgia Institute of Technology

Date: Sep 23 2009
Major: Engineering Department (This Major's Salary over time)
I see many similar reviews about campus life that I saw when I was first looking at schools. Sure, there are lots of other schools where the campus life is one big party - but you can make Tech what you want it to be. My biggest recommendation for enjoying campus life is to get involved. I was in a fraternity, which was a positive experience for me. I gained friends, support, and many extracurricular activities to join in that helped make my "not studying time" more enjoyable. But you don't have to go Greek to enjoy Tech. All of my classmates in my major (Materials Engineering) were not Greek. Being a small major, we all were friends. But I noticed a split between them. It seemed like the ones who hated their time at Tech weren't involved in anything; while those who enjoyed Tech were involved in other clubs or intramurals. By getting involved, you get to know more people. Which leads to having more friends. Which leads to being able to find someone else who's free to hang out when you're free. And that's what makes the college experience enjoyable.

Outside of my advice for making Tech an enjoyable experience, Tech is a lot of work. And if you ignore that, you'll either be failing out or struggling to pass as you learn that each successive class builds on the classes you ignored last semester. When I came to Tech, I was the only student from my high school that went there. I didn't know anyone and I'm not a social butterfly, so I took a long time to make friends. I was hating my school choice when I first started at Tech. But I think it helped me, because I spent more time getting all my school work done and ended up doing well my first semester (we were actually on a quarter system then, but I'm just going to call them all semesters here, for simplicity). Once you get about halfway through Tech, those foundation courses are the basis for all your upper-level coursework (which don't usually do as much piggy-backing on each other like the initial coursework does). So, doing well in those first couple years is important in making it out of Tech. Messing up in a later course, probably won't hurt you - although you probably won't have that problem if you did well in your foundation courses.

My last bit of advice is to co-op. This was the best thing I did while at Tech. It puts (GOOD) bread in your pocket (unlike my high school friends who were still working "high school" summer jobs). I co-oped my second semester at Tech. I got the job before they even saw a single Tech grade. I actually worked in Atlanta and stayed on campus, which meant that I had money and free time to hang out with the other students. These were some of the most fun semesters. And the experience I gained helped tremendously in landing job interviews for after graduation. It also extended my time as a student and gave me these free semesters to enjoy Tech as if I was at one of those other party schools. Lastly, while I do think Tech is still an engineering school and doesn't even attempt to masquerade as anything else, with an engineering degree you can find employment in almost any other field of work - not just engineering. I know fellow engineering graduates that graduated to manage stores, start their own businesses, work as finacial assistants for stock brokers, become real estate agents, and more. An engineering degree is treated almost like a "general" degree if you want to get higher education in something else: medical, law, business, etc. And I think a lot of higher institutes give you bonus points for getting an engineering degree when they evaluate you, because I know a lot of fellow engineering majors that didn't have very good grades but got into many good grad schools. Like they say, Tech won't hand hold you. But, if you graduate from Tech, you'll realize that Tech really taught you how to succeed at anything on your own. And that will make the next 40 years of your life a lot better than those party-school graduates who don't like what they're doing and don't know how to do anything else.