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Johns Hopkins University

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Date: Sep 24 2004
Major: Engineering Department (This Major's Salary over time)
Just like any other university, Hopkins has its postives and negatives. The trick is getting the positive aspects to work for you while minimizing the negatives.

First, the negatives.

Like many reviewers, I've fought more than my fair share of battles with the adminstrative bureacracy and have a less than postive impression of them. On the other hand, with a few very rare exceptions, almost every university adminstration is a slow moving bureacracy and is a pain in the ass to deal with. You may think the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, b when things go wrong, dealing with the administration is going to be a headache pretty much anywhere you go, period.

The social life. Hopkins is not the place for you if you're a person who waits around for fun to find you. On the other hand, if you have the initiative, fun is right around the proverbial corner. Though it steadily improved in the last couple of years I was there (95-02 undergrad/grad), there's only a couple of late night places around the Homewood campus. If you can get transportation, get your butt down to Canton or Fells Point down by the harbor. The scene there is much livelier. Try not to be insulated. I made friends with a bunch of students from Loyola, barely a mile up the road. (Loyola students know how to have a good time.) Take part in the inter-university stuff with UMCP and make friends with the students there. UMCP is HUGE and the social scene down there (large state school vs small private school) is a complete change of pace from Hopkins. I met some of my closest friends at Loyola and UMCP and I'm not even from Maryland! Like I said, if you take the initiative and go looking for a good time, you'll run right into it. If you sit around waiting for a good time to happen, you'll have a mediocre time at best.

Baltimore is a really quirky, charming little city if you take the time to get to know it. There's always something weird or unusual going on somewhere in Baltimore or DC - all you have to do on any given weekend is show up. Simply put, socially, you're definitely going to have to do your own legwork. That can be positive or negative, depending on how you look at it. I found being part of little communities all over Baltimore to be more gratifying than getting drunk at frat/house parties and hooking up every night, but for you, the opposite might be true. Despite what you may hear, you do NOT have to dump your social life, live like a hermit and camp the MSE (main library) to make decent grades at Hopkins, even if you have a lab research job. Striking a balance isn't that hard. (Hopefully, you'll figure it out faster than I did. At one point, I failed out and had to reapply to get back in.)

Academics. Yes, it is possible to graduate while only attending large classes and not getting to know any of your professors. Some students also complain about the profs not caring about them. This can also be true. On the other hand, my experience was completely opposite. What these guys (and girls) are missing is that that the professors at Hopkins can be one of your greatest resources. I was on a first name basis with many of my profs and although its been four years since I was an undergrad, I can still call on many of them for advice or help. I've had more than one prof go out of their way to help me out, years after I graduated. Why would a professor be cold and hostile to you? Maybe because you didn't ever bother to talk to them until the last week of class when everyone else is competing for their time. In my experience, professors will treat you with the same amount of respect with which you treat them. I'm not saying that you should kiss their butts or show false enthusiasm, but if you choose small classes that you're genuinely interested in, you're going to have a much better time than if you're there to punch your ticket and do the minimum amount required of you by taking a bunch of 100 and 200 level massive lecture hall courses.

This brings me to what Hopkins should really be called - The Johns Hopkins GRADUATE University. Hopkins has the highest ratio of graduate to ungrads of any school in the country - not counting the full-on graduate only institutions, of course. The Hopkins institution has roughly two and a half grad students for every one undergrad. The negative impact of this is that undergraduate education isn't the top priority, as it would be at a small liberal arts college. Some of the most interesting classes in fields that Hopkins is famous for are held only at the graduate divisions. How can you get this emphasis on graduate education to work for you? Well, JHU has one of the most liberal cross-divisional enrollment policies in the country. Enrolling in a class at the med school, Public Health, School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) or any other division is a simple matter of meeting the prerequisites and/or getting the professor to sign off on it. I cross-enrolled in a LOT of classes, mostly in the School of Public Health and was never once turned down by a professor once he or she knew that I was committed to taking it seriously. As an undergrad, I've been in classes where the other three students in my study group were all MDs, and not just fresh out of medical school, but experienced doctors. That's a learning experience unlike any other you'll have anywhere else. Try walking up and signing up for graduate division courses at Harvard and Yale and see how many hoops you have to jump through. At Hopkins, its a fact of life. Actually, there are certain majors that practically require you to have heavy cross-divisional enrollment. But then again, if you want to do the bare minimum, that's an option, too.

Research. Getting into a graduate research group is usually as easy as walking up to a professor in a class you find interesting and asking them for a job. You'll probably be a lab worker bee for the first semester or two, but after that, you'll find yourself doing real research that is traditionally the domain of graduate students. Hell, I knew guys who cold-emailed professors at the med school that were doing work they found interesting, got lab jobs and ended up doing cutting edge biomechanics and genetics research. The Space Telescope Science Institute is literally across the street from campus and they've been known to hire undergrads, too. Just walk across the street and use their bulletin board. (Or the one in Bloomberg for that matter.) Its THAT easy to do graduate level research as an undergrad at Hopkins. Added benefit: when it comes time for you to ask you for recommendations to medical, law or graduate school, you'll have people with serious mojo who know you both personally and professionally writing them for you.

Food. Unequivocal thumbs down. The residential cafeterias are the worst among the nation. College surveys back me up on this. Still didn't keep me from gaining ten pounds as a freshman, though. Heh. Getting off the meal plan: positive - you don't have to eat the cafeteria food. Minus - meals are when you socialize so you miss out on that. I'm not Jewish but I ended up eating at the Kosher cafeteria because the quality of food was higher. (Learned the hard way that cheeseburgers are a kosher no-go.)

If you're looking for a focus on the traditional undergraduate college experience, there are better places than Hopkins. If you're looking for an MTV party experience, Hopkins is definitely not for you. If you are not someone who enjoys or has an easy time of finding fun in out of the way places, life in Baltimore can be pretty boring. On the other hand, if you have the least bit of self motivation and initiative, the ease of access to opportunities at Hopkins are unmatched.

Responses
questionHi, my name is Millie Shah and I am a senior at Sunny Hills High School in southern California and currently looking at applying early to JHU. You seem like an honest person and I was really curious about what life is like at Johns Hopkins. I am interested in the BME major and I have been to Johns Hopkins for a summer program but I am scared that as an undergrad, college at JHU will be too competitive and no fun at all. i would really appreciate your objective and honest opinion on Johns Hopkins social scene because I am sure we all agree that this school excels in academics(so that is not really a deciding factor for me—but i have heard college is the best time of your life and i dont want to waste mine being miserable). Thank you so much for your time. -Millie
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