University of Notre Dame | Student Reviews | Best College

Student Profile

Betsy

Class: Sophomore
Major: Accounting
Gender: F

High School: San Ramon Valley High School
Transfer Student: N

Big Picture

The best thing about Notre Dame is the community of people who make up the student body and staff. Everyone is so welcoming and friendly and it makes Notre Dame a really fun place to be. People want to be here and they want to learn and grow and have fun and it shows! I think our campus is just the right size because it's not too big where you feel overwhelmed and alone, but not too small where you know everyone else's business and feel like you are constantly seeing the same people. Being from California, most people don't even know where Notre Dame is and don't understand why I would want to go to a school where there is snow and bad weather. People on the west coast or people who haven't heard of or visited Notre Dame in general just don't get it. They don't understand what an amazing place this school is and they don't understand how happy I am to be here. It would be nice if Notre Dame had a town to go with it, but South Bend is not really the nicest place and that is what makes the campus community even better. The campus is closed to the surrounding and there are no cars or streets running through it which makes you feel secure and safe. It is also nice because everything is easy to get to and all of the people you want to be with are within a reasonable distance. The farthest walk to any building on campus is probably 10-12 minutes which is really convenient. Notre Dame has more school pride than any place I have ever seen or heard of. I love the fact that by just going here you automatically belong and are part of a group that loves you and respects you. Tradition is a very important part of Notre Dame and it shows in many campus wide activities and sports. The dorms at Notre Dame are amazing, they are old and full of character, but still really nice to live in and each dorm has its own activities, dances and traditions which make everyone's dorm experience unique. The most frequent student complaints probably have to do with our rules, because Notre Dame is a Catholic University and has strict rules regarding members of the opposite sex in dorms and alcohol policies but in the bigger picture these are really only minor issues that students get over pretty quickly.

Academic Life

Not only do most of my professors know my name, but they know where I am from, what my major is, what I am interested in and much more. Professors here really like to get personal with their students and talk outside of class and it's really nice because it completely changes the classroom experience and helps you get involved in every class because classes are more of a discussion rather than a lecture. My favorite class was probably IT Management because it was a pretty basic class and the professor made it really fun. Sometimes the projects were a bit tedious or repetitive but the skills applied to almost all of my classes and the projects applied to real-life scenarios which made it interesting and applicable to the job world. My least favorite class is probably Marketing because it is a little boring and repetitive and I have a hard time getting excited about it since there are no projects. Students here are competitive, but not so much that they aren't willing to help each other out. Professors encourage students to collaborate and work together and I think that is what really helps with the sense of community on campus. Students aren't afraid that if they help each other they will suffer, so it is very common for students to help each other out and study or work together. My major is accounting and the accounting department here is amazing. It is one of the top 5 programs nationally and all of the teachers that I have had in the accounting department so far have been extremely helpful and eager to stimulate our learning and get us excited for the business world. The requirements are reasonable but at the same time still challenging and rigorous. There is a lot of flexibility at Notre Dame and students can take classes that they are really interested in and plan their schedules according to their own needs and wants. Professors are constantly applying real life business cases to the curriculum and encouraging students to think about situations they might face in the working world and that makes me feel a lot more comfortable in terms of being ready for a real job.

Student Body

I think Notre Dame is a fun, diverse campus and there are a lot of different groups doing a lot of different things and it is easy to become involved in any one of them at any given time. You can get involved in a bible study group or a bagpiping club and that makes it really cool because there are so many options to choose from and you can really try new things. There are also many different foreign students and different groups all over and all of these groups do interact in the dorms and in the classrooms and there doesn't seem to be any clear separation between people. Some students dress up for class, others wear sweats. There is a big mix and it is really just whatever you feel comfortable in. In the dining hall, a lot of times you will see a group of kids from Spanish speaking countries and a group of athletes and a group of girls and a group of boys, but that doesn't mean that you won't see tables where all of these groups or intermingled. Typically students here are somewhat wealthy, but that's not to say that only wealthy kids go here because there is a lot of financial aid and scholarships available that make it possible for anyone to go here. I think a majority of students are conservative, but there are still a large number of liberal students and other political beliefs and there doesn't seem to be much clash among these groups. Notre Dame is not a very political campus, but there are several clubs that work toward promoting awareness and different views. Students here know that their education will help them make a lot of money in the future, but the main emphasis isn't so much on money rather than family and friends and just doing something that makes you happy. At Notre Dame, you learn that there is more to life than just money.