Student Profile
Kevin
- Class: Senior
- Major: Marketing
- Gender: M
- High School:
- Transfer Student: N
Big Picture
The best thing about Iowa is the sense of community. Ask any student and they'd agree, even though Iowa is a Big Ten school with 30,000 students, it has such a small school feel. With downtown so close and the buildings near each other, you cannot walk from one building to the other without seeing people you know. It really creates a strong sense of belonging. Plus, without any professional sports in the state of Iowa, everyone backs the Hawks. Game days on this campus are nuts- the town triples in size and it is black and gold absolutely everywhere.
Academic Life
Writing in Spanish was the best class I've ever taken. My teacher was incredible- Gay Allan was her name. Class participation is very common. Even in lectures. For example, one of our professors, Dave Collins, walks around in the lecture and will just sit down in the middle of students and start doing his lesson from there. He even holds competitions in the class, he asks for students to find as many "promotional cards" in their wallet and whoever wins gets money... incredibly engaging and hilarious professor. I love the marketing department at Iowa. The teachers are fantastic and all have a strong background in the field. I even work for one of my professors as a marketing consultant with one of her Iowa based clients. The entrepreneurship program is one of best things about our business school. Despite the name, you do not have to want to start a business to take the classes. You don't even have to be a business major. You learn all about creating a business plan (you create several fake companies even), how new business gain capital, how to market on a small budget, etc- all the very principles that all of the big companies we know of were based off of. Plus, the program is backed by John Pappajohn who is a multi-millionaire entrepreneur who owns a venture capital firm in Des Moines.
Student Body
Mix of student backgrounds, but with such a strong Chicago base (33% of the student body) there is a lot of money in the student body. Again, since we don't even have a agricultural program here our students are focused on other areas of study, so it proves our "stereotype" wrong. The students here are also incredibly nice- you'll be walking down the hall and people just love to smile and say hello. A lot of partiers in the student mix. Iowa is NOT a "suitcase" college by any means, on the weekends you will find the library empty and our 40 bars in walking distance packed with people...
