The University of Wisconsin - Madison

There is a bizarre similacrum of diversity because of the number of gatekeeping and low-level administration jobs given to women and minorities. Madison doesn't have the best reputation for diversity, and that's for a reason. The obsession with numbers is understandable because they're not a rich private school, but be warned that there are really no perks to being here besides its reputation. It's cold, the lines to the elevator in the English department go out the door, classrooms in humanities are an inch thick with dust and the quality of campus and classroom discourse is in the toilet. The arrogance of UW is coming back to haunt it because the state seems to have little interest in funding it, and the right wing fights the student government over trying to lower tuition, just to be contrary. The libraries are "closed" and have various ID policies, and I have seen a black student get harrassed in the library by obnoxious security guards. Evidently he looked too much like a townie because he was actually behaving himself and quietly checking his email. Every professor gets gratuitous applause on the last class, probably just because the students are so glad they actually have a professor and not a TA. The emphasis on professionalism over intellectualism makes for great laughs because you can ask any econ or international business major a question about econ or international business which requires thought and get a blank stare.

Actually, it's not impossible to like it here, but you really have to luck out on which classes and professors you get, living arrangements, etc. With such a large student body everything is left to chance. The departments are always competing to get people in their classes so there are quite a few breadth and degree requirements, a few major programs that seem a bit padded, and no undergraduate minors because following your interests is the kind of dilettantism that makes their numbers suck. So much the better, since most people take significantly more than 5 years to graduate.

Since my parents, much of my family, and many of my best profs were alumni, it makes me sad to see Bucky being pimped out, but there is a fun side to being here once you get into the rhythm of lucking out/being screwed over .If you must come here, bring good closed-toe footware for avoiding ice/puke, make sure you get the fake photo taken of the cop dragging you away at Mifflin, buy the shirt that says "Wiscompton," take the elevator to the seventh floor of Van Hise and walk down, eat at Pelmeni and not the ICU, and be nice to foreign students because they go through 7 times more red tape than you do, including paying for their own surveillance. But don't get caught expressing political opinions. Remember, the girl you ate a sandwich in front of during the hunger strike for lower tuition will some day be in charge of assessing your unemployment benefits, and the guy who hung the picture of the dead Arab over the poster for the Islamic cultural fair will someday be your boss in the foreign service. Good luck!