Tell us about your school's "culture"

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We're a tier one school, that is well known in several of its specialty academic schools. One of the programs I'm enrolled in is recognized as one of the three best for its area in North America.


It has a very family like atmosphere – you can flag down the university president to have lunch with you if you see him walking around.

Every year we have a day where they cancel classes so students can contribute to the university's mission statement - I changed my universities advertising area, by simply speaking up in my session that I knew alot of people where I'm from who went to schools 2 and 3 states away just because they wanted to attend a university our size (about 6,000 students but it was 4,000 when i started), but when I mentioned my school no one had ever heard of it. The other people in my session didn't think it was worthwhile to advertise there, but I was adament so they wrote it down. Now if I say what school I'm at, people in my hometown say, "oh, So and so goes there too."

Not only do the provide Covey’s 7 habits of highly effective workshop completely free to students, you can have the uni prez teach it
The only graffiti I’ve ever seen on campus is over 100 years old, and I’ve been here for 5 years now.

You're just as likely to have a professor give you that needed ride, as you are a another student.

Professors and faculty talk amongst themselves about their students accomplishments. I've had professors i didn't even know tell me how impressed they were with my campus projects when they heard my name.

When i had my picture in the newspaper, the presidents office, my academic department, and a couple professors cut it out and sent it to me.

There are quite a few professors who have "candy fridays" and many set out their old books and other materials for interested students to take.

I talked about my high school culture. Now, I'll mention my university culture. The university was located in the middle of an upscale urban neighborhood. Despite that, the culture was very blah, boring, and sterile (just visualize one of those new suburban subdivisions). Everybody pretty much kept to themselves or within their own groups. Student activities and on-campus events were few and far between, and among those that took place, most had a patronizing overtone to them. Bars and clubs in the area were worse than useless; the odds of "something happening" were -100%. The situation made worse by the fact that I didn't live on campus, although if I did, my experience wouldn't have been significantly better.

The best culture, from what I observed, was at University of Wisconsin-Madison, when me and my friends went there to visit another friend. I felt welcome the second I set foot there. The people at the school treated me with respect, and I didn't feel a trace of discomfort, even thought I stayed in a frat house with twelve complete strangers. There were a few stuck-up people there, but they generally left other people alone.

Needless to say, I should have gone to Madison, that not the school I originally chose.

Do not compliment the P.E. coach or she will tell to you to shove it or/and give you an icy stare
It is undecided whether or not one of the religion teachers is a homosexual. We have often fantasized about running about to him and asking "What are you?!"
The world history teacher is very sarcastic and should not be taken seriously
The school food should not be thought of as edible
It is considered kosher to play the You're So Gay That... game
It is fine to insult or demean your friend
The AP kids in the senior lunch section talk about sex 24/7(it's rather hard to enjoy your lunch while sitting with them)
Insults or demeaning context should not taken be seriously and must be answered with equally witty banter (Ex. person: Did i invite you to this conversation? me: do i care?)
Gossip spreads like a wild fire and must doused at all costs
It is a horrid thing if you don't participate in any clubs or sports at school
The attendance lady will annoy you to no end
Everyone is connected to someone else through a social network.(ex. a nerd is friends with a cheerleader is friends with a gay guy is friends with me)

1) It is perfectly acceptable to play video games during free time (if you're a senior). Hell, it was fairly common to see the entire varsity football team play Halo in the senior commons.

2) There are no cliques. Guys can ask any girl out within the school. On the other side, because every girl is a friend with every other girl, every girl is instantly made aware if a guy is cheating on a girl.

3) Weed is legal (given that I hate the smell of weed, this was annoying to me.) This changed when I was a junior and special swipe cards were given to every student to be able to access the bathrooms.

4) It is perfectly acceptable to associate with most teachers. Of course, the teachers in my school were mostly cool, with a few exceptions below (numbers 5-7), so that didn't really matter much.

5) One of the US History 2 teachers had a streak for flirting with the women in the class. This was one of those weird creepy 60 year old guys too...

6) There were a few ***hole teachers in the school. It is perfectly acceptable if you're in a class with him/her to also act like a jerk to "fit in". If you were a jerk to other classmates, he pretty muc left you alone. If you were a jerk to him, however, you got kicked out and possibly were subject to detentions.

7) While she was cool, the AP english 3 teacher made you do a 70 page paper.

The administrative staff was always against you, even while trying to appear as though they were for you.