Purdue University--West Lafayette | Student Reviews | Best College

Student Profile

Jen

Class: Senior
Major: Art/Art History
Gender: F

High School:
Transfer Student: N

Big Picture

Purdue may be a Big Ten school; but I still have a sense of knowing everyone! Not literally, but you get to know people in your classes, in your residence hall, that you happen to meet at the library, etc. I don't feel Purdue is too big at all; and I'm glad I am constantly able to meet new people and share new ideas and experiences. I am not part of the Greek system, and that's fine. I have friends both in and out of the Greek system, it's not a requirement to having a fulfilling college experience at Purdue to be Greek. Our mascot is a bit odd...but that makes it that much cooler to say I'm a Boilermaker. One of my biggest complaints is the computer labs/set-up of computer services at Purdue. We are about to undergo a big overhaul and it's really a mess. You would think that with our computer sciences department being so prestigious we would have a better handle on our campus technology! Hopefully that will get ironed out a little more in the next year or so...but we'll see.

Academic Life

Academics at Purdue vary greatly by department and level of the course. Some classes require attendance/assign attendance points (these classes are usually exceedingly dull and a lot of hoop jumping), others take the approach that it's your money, your education and your responsibility. There are a lot of requirements to get through, (I will refer to this as hoop-jumping), some of which are valuable and some of which are lame. State requirements for certain programs and inter-departmental disagreement and confusion add to this problem. If you are a high school student looking to go to Purdue, first off know that Purdue takes very little AP credits, and secondly know that if you can find out what credits Purdue does take through AP it could save you from a few classes here and there. I got a 4 on the AP biology and tested out of Biology 110 at Purdue as a result. So if you are going into liberal arts, this gets you out of one of your science requirements. However if you're pre-med, you have to take Biology 121 any way, so it's kind of pointless. My AP gov and econ exams got me no credit at Purdue. Purdue does have language requirement test outs when you come to campus after you decide to enroll at the university.

Student Body

Purdue is not the most politically active campus; being situated in a conservative state, but we have some political activity. The Students for Life put crosses all over the memorial mall once a year; which has always bothered me. I've also seen a reenactment of the crucifixion of Christ played out for Good Friday. In contrast 'sex on the mall' sex education booths run by such groups as Purdue VOX and the LGBT groups pass out free condoms and offer a myriad of information and interesting activities, which also occurs annually at a different time. We have a wide variety of students, though quite a lot from good old in-state Indiana and the Chicago area. I see the greatest diversity while working at the Purdue Memorial Union - everyone comes to eat pizza.