The University of Washington - Seattle

Date: Mar 08 2005
Major: Aerospace Engineering (This Major's Salary over time)
I have been going here for about a year and have found it a really solid all around school, excellent in many areas. First off, the campus, city, and Lake Washington are beautiful. Anyone who doubts this hasn't seen the cherry trees in the quad in bloom. Seattle is not too big, but as big as you could want. Also, the Cascades, Olympics, and Puget Sound are close by and offer all sorts of outdoor activities.

By my most important criteria, academics, the UW is excellent. Microsoft pours money into the school and new department buildings are going up all the time. Much of the campus is less than ten years old.

This is not Harvard, which means you aren't guarenteed a place as CEO of a fortune 500 company just because you got in. While this vexes some people, I personally would rather be judged by my excellence than the name of the school on my diploma. The UW is a good enough school that you can excel here in any field you choose- so long as you are willing to put in the effort. Classes are big as a freshman and very competitive. They WILL NOT coddle you. You MUST be proactive in studying, talking to teachers, finding research opportunities, etc. You have to be on the ball and have personal discipline or you will find yourself going from pre-med to communications in a hurry.

That said- if you are willing to do what is neccesary, you can get an education on par with any in the country, without paying $40,000 a year. I wouldn't go anywhere else except perhaps Stanford or Cal Tech.