North Carolina State University - Raleigh

NCState has been a good school for me. The students were friendly and even though I lived off campus for all 4 years, I made tons of friends in class and it was easy to stay in touch with what was going on on-campus. Safety was never an issue.

I have lived in Raleigh for about 10 years, so I knew what i was getting into when decided to stay in Raleigh for college. Unlike some ppl say, there ARE things to do in Raleigh, you just have to be willing to and openminded. In the spring/summer there is something called Alive After Five, where they shut down a city block in the middle of downtown and have bands play and serve alcohol and its basically one big party. Across from campus there is a movie theatre that serves alcohol, and a few bars, including 2 Hookah bars. Just a few miles down the road is a strip filled tons of bars and late night street hotdog vendors. Off campus parties tend to be somewhat lame...you have to get connected with the right ppl who know where the good ones are.

If you love sports then NCSU is the school for you. School spirit is HIGH, if not off the charts. The football and basketball games are amazing. Everyone comes together.

Campus diversity is ok on diversity. You will see a few asians, etc. There didnt seem to be many black people. However, the whole redneck thing is a lie. There are of course groups of rednecks since it is an Agricultural school, but mostly the student body are just normal average middle class americans. They also have on campus vendors who set up and sell neat things. They arent pushy or anything, they are just set up their stuff and you can browse. It seemed to add diversity, which I liked. Also, during football season, for a whole week, they set up a big "pinic" for lunch and hand out football shaped beads and you stand in line and get free food which is catered by a restaurant across the road. Its very good!

As with all schools, some teachers were good, some wernt......some classes were hard, some wernt. If you are engineering, be prepared to STUDY. The engineering and science classes are hard. Out of all the ppl I know who took Organic Chemistry....less than half passed it the first time. I have found that all the very difficult classes ended up being rewarding, though. All in all, I loved NC State.

4th Year Female -- Class 2006

Perceived Campus Safety: A, Individual Value: C

I am an undergraduate social work student and this program is not all that compared to other schools I have taken classes at. The biggest problem with this program are the instructors they have their favorite students and they let you know if you are not one of them. Most of them give you grades with no explanations. Some of the classes the professors do more talking about themselves than actually giving you something to learn. I've taken sociology classes here and the professors in those classes actually stick to the lesson plan. The program here just wants to see if you can give presentations, majority of the work is project and presentation format if you can't do that then the instructors consider you incompetent to work in the field which is sad & in my opinion they don't focus about the options you have like grant writing. Social Work classes are not interesting here at all and they have no concentrations so it's just a BSW degree and the same with their masters program no concentrations. Also, some of the advisors are terrible! There are people in my classes that weren't supposed to be in there because they did not follow the plan of study. Students matriculated when they should not have so graduating early for many has nothing to do with how smart you are but how screwed up the advisor was! Go elsewhere, please or change your major.

3rd Year Female -- Class 2001

University Resource Use/ spending: A, Education Quality: D-