Of course I care
somewhat about academics, perhaps 'don't give a shit' was the wrong phrase. From what I've learnt from Americans who come out here (and I could be wrong), some universities have reputations as being academic schools, some sport schools, some party schools, etc. Of course, I'm sure there's a healthy mix at all schools, but from what I hear it would be a fair comment to say some lean more one direction than another. What I'm saying is that I wouldn't pick a university based on the fact that it is reknowned for its academic achievements, that is not my top criteria. Whether or not a university has good class sizes, lecture sizes, 90% of graduates in Fortune 500 companies, whatever, is not realyl a consideration... what I learn in the class room isn't as important as what I learn out of it, in a sense. Of course, I'd be pissed off if I failed, but I'm not aiming for A+ by any stretch.
PhiSigGabs, what can you tell me about College Park campus at Maryland? Is it that main campus? I really want to live on the main campus of a big university, I want to get right in the thick of it. Whereabouts in the US is Maryland? I have a feeling the South? The only reason I'm thinking about Florida over Maryland is that I know more about it, that it's warm I guess. That frat row sounds cool, just like 90210
Oh, that's another question, how many people are normally in a Fraternity? I take it not all live in the house? Are brothers who don't live in the house as close knit as those who do?
As for joining a Frat here, unfortunately we have nothing like the Greek system here. Our tertiary structure in a social sense is fundamentally different to yours I believe. We tend not to move away from home to go to university, as all our uni's are government owned and of roughly the same quality. You don't really feel any allegiance to your university as they're so big (around 50 - 60, 000 people) and don't play sports or anything really against each other. They're more of just a place to go to class and meet up with mates before heading down to the pub. The closest thing we have are residential colleges, which are dorms that are affiliated with the university of about 100 - 200 people each. We play sport (
not rugby, thankyou very much SoCalGirl, it's all Aussie Rules in Melbourne
) against each other and compete in all sorts of things, although it's generally more supervised (I presume) than the Greek system. I live at International House in Melbourne, if anyone's interested.