University of Nebraska--Lincoln | Student Reviews | Best College

Student Profile

Jessica

Class: Senior
Major: Communications
Gender: F

High School: Bellevue West High School
Transfer Student: N

Big Picture

One of the best things about UNL is its beautiful campus. It can only be fully enjoyed when it's not 30 below zero and blizzarding, but when Spring hits and the fountain turns on, it's a lovely dwelling place. If I could change something about this university it would be the fact that we don't have a lot of campus-wide activities going on very often, and when we do, often times I don't hear about them because they aren't usually publicized very well. That frustrates me, because I like to attend the big hurrah events when they set them up, but we don't usually get emails, it's mostly just a few posters on campus, so if you miss them, you are in the dark. Size-wise, this school fits me perfectly. The intro classes are ginormous, so it takes a couple of years to get into classes where you might actually makes some good friends because you can find each other on a day to day basis. As a girl coming from Bellevue / Omaha, it fit my lifestyle well. For those of you coming from small towns, it's a good community here. If you're coming from a big city, it's a lot different here! It really depends on your personality and what kind of campus you are looking for. Be prepared to answer questions about / defend / say you don't care about the Huskers (football team) if you go here. That's what people will ask you about. When I lived on campus, when it was nice out, I spent most of my time walking around. I got some great exercise that year! It's fun to walk downtown or out in the Haymarket. There's lots of little shops and places to explore. I'd say UNL is definitely a college town on this side of Lincoln. There are lots of businesses geared towards college students. If you go into the other parts of Lincoln, it's a lot more middle-class suburbia. Students do have a lot of school pride here, I think mostly due (once again) to the strong affiliation with our athletics. One unusual thing about UNL is the overpopulation of squirrels who aren't afraid of people and stray kitties. You can't take two steps in any direction without seeing one of those two critters meandering by.

Academic Life

Some professors work really hard to learn your name, others don't really care. In the giant intro classes, most the time, no one knows your name. However, once you get into a major and are more involved in class, professors make a conscious effort to make sure you all know one and other. My favorite classes I've taken here have been a couple in the communication studies department, which is my major, and the history of rock n' roll class, which was an extra-curricular. I love the communication classes because essentially you are studying to learn about people and figure out systems and patterns that exist in our everyday interactions. Doing so lets the communication studies students have a much deeper understanding of the way things work and allows us to see what ways we can improve our communication patterns in all kinds of situations. The rock n' roll class was fun and very interesting. I learned a lot of random facts about artists I had never really been in to and although I took that class early on in college, I pop out random facts from it to this day. As far as amount of study time goes, it really depends on the student and what classes they are in. For example, a computer science major is likely going to spend a lot more time studying than a psychology major who just has to cram before tests, especially in the intro undergraduate years. My recommendation is that if you are in any foreign language courses, take as much out of each class as you can. It will help you in your last class... which can be tricky! UNL does a lot to help students learn the best job seeking techniques and they offer a lot of resources. I'm starting to really appreciate this as a senior who will be out seeking a job in the pretty near future. Career Services is set up to help students seek out internships, give career counseling, help you put together a good resume and cover letter, and a plethora of other things.

Student Body

From what I've seen, most people seem to mesh pretty well together here and people are mostly accepting. I'm sure there are extreme cases, but this is certainly true in the groups of people I've known at the university. There are quite a few support groups for different classifications of minority students as well. We host lots of scholarship and foreign exchange students who are from different parts of Asia, the middle east, Europe, etc. It can be really cool to get to know these people because their experiences and culture are so different from yours. As far as interaction goes, you choose who you want to interact with here. Sometimes you notice the groups, sometimes you don't, but I think a lot of it has to do with you as an individual. You can decide what kind of group you want to hang out with. We have a lot of students from all over Nebraska. Most the people I've met have grown up somewhere in the Midwest. Politics have been an exciting ordeal on campus lately. We had Chelsea Clinton drop by the student union a couple weeks back and give a speech, as well as Senator Obama's wife. There are young republicans and young democrats groups available to those who want to be active in politics.