IU is famous for its ?beautiful campus?, a sentiment I share for the most part.  However, this is a relatively old university, and not all buildings have been well maintained.  Classrooms are sterile, devoid of any decoration or design, yet this is admittedly the case with most college classrooms.  Some of the lecture halls have been updated with padded seats, which are quite comfortable, and make sitting for long stretches of time relatively easy.  But the more ?traditional?  halls have wooden or hard plastic seats, which become torturous after an hour or more.  The campus sprawls across nearly 2,000 acres, meaning that students must take into account the distance between buildings when scheduling courses back-to-back, as it is quite possible that you would not have enough time to get from one class to the next if they are held in buildings on opposite sides of the campus.  The campus does benefit from a decent bus system (free for all full-time students) which helps offset this problem.  Parking for freshman is abysmal---you may only park at the stadium, and the university makes you move your car whenever there is a home football or basketball game.  They don?t care WHERE you move it, so finding a legal space is up to you.  Further, there is no warning system or ?three strikes and you?re out?  policy.  They towed my car the first time I forgot and left it at the stadium during a home game.  It was towed to a place off campus that I had to walk to and pay $140 dollars to have it taken out of impoundment.

Administrative aspects aside, I have not been disappointed by the academics.  I?ve been fortunate enough to be taught by actual professors in all of my classes (not TAs) but I do not think this is the norm, especially for intro level math and science classes.  All of them seem knowledgeable in their fields, and eager to communicate with students via e-mail or office hours.  I?ve never felt belittled by my professors, even as a freshman.  Additionally, most have a generally gregarious personality, and may crack a good natured joke in class on occasion.  My only academic complaint is that, as a student wanting to major in Psychology who had already taken AP Psych in high school and scored a 5 on the test, I was still obligated to take P 155 (an intro course) which was essentially a review of everything I had already learned from the AP class.  I got next to nothing out of that semester-long course, and could have easily started out in a 200 level class.

IU?s most glaring flaw is the social scene on campus (or more accurately, the lack of one).  The Greeks essentially control the school, so if you want to have ANY fun on a Friday or Saturday night, join a Fraternity or Sorority, or make friends with someone who?s Greek.  There is next to nothing to do off campus---Bloomington is a sorry excuse for a ?college town?  and has little to offer anyone too young to get into bars.  The students themselves are aloof, backward, or indifferent.  Almost everyone drinks heavily, and many also smoke.  It?s an unwritten rule that you do not attempt to make eye-contact or even look at someone whom you pass on the sidewalk, or attempt to speak to someone waiting at the same bus stop as you.  I?ve been to New York, and the same social conventions seem to be in place here, despite the fact that everyone is a student going to the same university in the Midwest.  There is also no dating scene.  A girl probably wouldn?t know how to respond if someone asked her out, because no one asks anyone out.  Fun follows a basic pattern in the form of 1) go to a party hosted by a Greek house 2) become intoxicated to the point of memory loss the next day 3) hook-up with someone and have casual sex 4) wake up the following day hung-over, and with little recollection of what happened the night before.  To some, this may exemplify a great college experience.  But to me, or anyone else looking to meet people while sober, take a girl out instead of just having sex with her, or just have fun without going to a rave party, that kind of ?fun?  is ultimately shallow and grows stale quickly.