The University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

Life
When I came to the Univ. I had to adapt, Wolverine Football, Red Wings fever and the like. Coming from NYC, I had to absorb Midwestern life. Never really was a football fan.

I live in the dorms for the entire time. Living off-campus= expensive, not good bang for buck and safe? hah. it's drinking paradise once you get do to geddes and hill st.

I knew a range of people from the naive freshman to the OMG if I get a less than a 4.0 I'ma freak out.

One person being a triple major and maintaining nearly a 4 GPA even while taking first year graduate courses. Another typical I must go to med school do everything guy but I still am able to play video game RPGs and Halo every night. And the untypical laidback engineering student who would get As and make fun of the liberal arts college.

There were rich people who were full of themselves and said blah blah blah I have money lalalala. driving cars and humping their girls at night. I hated them.

I tried to be a nice guy. Kept my door open most of the time. Met some really nice people. I didn't know what beer pong was until junior year.

I did see some reverse discrimination but it's a very liberal campus. What can you expect? Just take the telemarketer approach with that if you want to. They claim diversity but what I mostly saw was people of the same race always finding their own niche in associations...etc. maybe that was just me.

MSA- the student assembly....cares more about Darfur than the university students. which IMO is kinda whack.

Advisors- you gotta be pointed with them. don't ask general, vague questions with them. ask specifics. and seriously after one or two visits freshman year, you should be ok and on track. you don't need the general advisors to tell you diff courses to take, that should be left to your concentration advisor.

Academics
Freshman classes: filled with pre-whatever people (freshman) trying to have an orgy with the professor whenever they wanted a good grade aka A+.

Memorizing till you die. If you can...take these courses over summer.
Pre-Med classes: meh. very competitive. beware intro bio. If you already have AP Bio. Run away from it and take genetics. intro bio was death for me and pre-med.

study and time manage. also try to go into univ hosp to volunteer and stuff.
Business classes: Very set. They have a set of courses for you to take. 4 accounting courses and some business mgmt and stats courses. it's like HS where the counselors pick the classes for you. somewhat elitist but brush it off

Econ classes: 401- most diff. class. (intermediate micro) lots of HW. 402- easier. (int. macro)

The rest of the upper level econ classes just require you to know the models learned in 401 or 402 and applying them to weird and diff secenarios.

I can't say much about the rest of the majors, but be prepared for lots of reading and writing.
if you can, take a language placement test and get rid of your foreign langugage req. you'll be glad you did. do it during orientation.

especially spanish at this college is very oral-based.
if you have ap calc (AB or BC) go for either Math 116 (Calc II)- considered to be very difficult because of the application of it. or Math 215 (Calc III) don't take 115 (Calc I) if you don't have to. it's team-based hw and tests and gateways which are like 30-min 7 question performance tests where you can't get less than one wrong or else your grade is affected.

AP vs classes here- no correlation.
lots of paper writing in other classes...such as Political Science
lots of freshman love to go to the library and study. The undergrad library (UGLI)
tuition-wise- Plan well...each yr tuition seems to be going up a few thousand.
Profs- A few can't teach, some are overdramatic, and some are really good down to earth people. Just try your best in class.

Summary- You need to be proactive at this college. There's a lot of clubs out there. It's all about time management. Don't annoy the profs like being one of the three people in a 500-person lecture hall to ask random questions every day.

Keep your head up.
When it's winter, don't feel down...just grab your winter jacket and attack that snow like it's a paper. It'll pass soon.GL HF.

4th Year Female -- Class 2009

Collaboration/Competitive: A+, Campus Aesthetics: F

UMich is a great school with highly rated programs across the board. Ann Arbor is both beautiful and urban, a great mix of the two, and there's always something going on, be it on the diag or on Main St. UMich students ARE arrogant, but they have a right to be, and aren't as arrogant as everyone likes to peg them. Classes are tough, but if you study and don't overwhelm yourself, you should be able to get by. I definitely love UMich and I'm glad I chose to come here.

1st Year Female -- Class 2012

Campus Aesthetics: A+, Useful Schoolwork: B-