Student Profile
MU is the place to be
- Class: Junior
- Major:
- Gender: NULL
- High School: Franklin High School (Franklin, WI)
- Transfer Student: N
Big Picture
I love the student body at Marquette. The size is perfectly mid-sized which makes it easy to meet new people and find close friends throughout your four years here. The students are very hard working, yet great at balancing fun and study time. From my experience the student body is caring and respectful and very welcoming. At first I was really upset that there was no football team. However, our club team is really fun to go watch as well as our other Big East teams, like Men and Women's soccer and the Volleyball and Basketball teams. Basketball season is so much fun and allows for a lot of socializing and school spirit! Milwaukee is a great city to live in as a college student. Its just the right size to explore and get around and not too costly like larger cities might be. The lakefront and downtown area are great all year round with rec paths and several beaches. Theres great entertainment and a lively art scene in the city with weekly jazz concerts during warm weather, independent galleries and theaters and lots of city wide events taking place. Marquette is structured perfectly within the city so that while we have our won campus community we also are a part of the greater Milwaukee community and only steps away from the center of downtown. We are definitely not a college town where our whole city is consumed by one large campus. There are several college campuses within Milwaukee which I think allows students much more diversity within the city. I think while the administration can be somewhat stubborn sometimes they really are making an effort to hear students voices more. As a member of student government I have noticed how well they receive student criticism on several topics and work to make life better for students on campus. For somethings it does take a while to see change take place, but we are a private Catholic university so it can be expected. There is a ton of school pride on our campus. In general I find that students are just happy to be at Marquette and proud to represent the university, especially pertaining to social justice causes. The most frequent student complaints are about the residence hall visitation rules. Being a jesuit campus, there are strict policies on opposite sex sleep overs and so forth. There have also been recent complaints about improving or building new recreation facilities for the students and club sports.
Academic Life
I love the well-rounded education that students receive with a focus on ethics and social justice. Marquette focuses on preparing the student for life after college and the ability to know and defend the morals and values that are important to you. Students develop great critical thinking skills as well as the ability to work in small groups, all skills which are important to any job one takes after college. The core curriculum requires students to take so many philosophy courses, theology courses and diverse cultures courses. At first I was terrified of Theology and Philosophy. These have been some of my favorite courses at Marquette because they really challenge more than your academic understanding of the subjects, but make you think about your own belief system. Theology isn't just about the Christian faith but out all religious experiences, so it is nothing to be afriad of. The Diverse Cultures courses offer a wide variety of options that allow you to learn more about the outside world. I have had awesome experiences with professors on campus. I would say 99% of my professors knew/know my name. I have professors from Freshman year that still stop me to ask how I'm doing or that I'll go sit and chat with to catch up. They are great at engaging the classroom and really making you think outside the box. They also offer a lot of availability outside of the classroom, in office hours or through other forms of contact if you ever need help. I also am a big fan of my advisor who is a faculty member and very helpful with whatever questions I have. Our student body isn't really competitve like you might find at some ivy league schools. Its more about challenging yourself than competing with the others around you. I think this is great and makes academics much less stressful. I have so many classes that I've loved at Marquette. I would say my favorite right now is my Conceptualizing Justice and Peace course. Its a Tuesday evening course which at first wasn't ideal, but I actually really like that time now because every week we trade off who brings dinner for the class. There's six of us and class focuses a lot on contemporary issues and discussion. We've had several guest lecturers that are important figures in the themes of the class and invoke wonderful discussion. My least favorite class was astronomy. I definitely misunderstood what astronomy was when I signed up for this one and was not prepared as a first semester Freshman. Another really unique class I've taken is a biology course for non-biology majors. Its called Pathogens, Plants and People and focuses a lot on contemporary issues in the environment and other topics that are actually useful for us in everyday life. The professor was amazing and really cared about the subject she was teaching.
Student Body
We don't have a very racially diverse campus, but I would not by any means say that our campus isn't diverse. We have people from a range of backgrounds and belief systems populating our student body and I am always being introduced to new perspectives and experiences. We do have a variety of religious and socio-economic groups on campus and representation for the LGBT community. The campus as a whole focuses on creating a welcoming and accepting environment in. I would say I learn just as much from my peers as I do from faculty on campus. Students of all types interact through class room and extracurricular experiences. We have both the left-leaning and conservative crowds on campus, with the majority probably being somewhere in the middle. Its refreshing that a lot of students I've encountered aren't so much concerned with how much they'll make in monetary means one day but more so with finding a fulfililng career. A lot of my friends graduate and go into post-grad volunteer positions before entering grad school or the intense career world. I would say we have a politically active campus, although I'm biased because I'm a political science major. Its very evident in my discussions with other students (in and outside of political science classes) that people have specific issues that they are passionate about.
The Best Things
The opportunity to develop yourself into who you want to be, rather than just what you want to be.
The Worst Things
Sometimes I wish the weather was more like California's, luckily our campus isn't too big, so you don't have to stay out in the cold too long.
