School Review: University of Michigan

Today was the first stop on my college road trip! Though I live in Michigan, I've never actually visited the University of Michigan campus. That changed today.

Pros: 

Ann Arbor is the coolest little town. The downtown area is filled with hip restaurants and I can tell it has a very active nightlife. I can't even imagine how busy it must be when the 40,000 students return in the fall. I can't imagine a night where I'd have nothing to do if I went to U of M. It has all the restaurants that everyone loves like Panera and Chipoltle. Oh, and I went to H&M for the first time today and it was great. I can't imagine a student coming to U of M and missing their favorite store or restaurant. Oh, and since Ann Arbor is a suburb of Detroit, there's always Detroit. By the way, Detroit gets a bad rep. I love the city.

The town seemed pretty diverse. Some things that stood out though were that the students that take classes during the summer were almost all Asian and I'm not sure if that's just a seasonal thing or if that's an indication of the racial demographics during the whole year.

I also really loved how proud everyone seemed to be of the school. I passed countless cars that bore "U of M Alumni" stickers or license plates with the big yellow M. A lot of people were wearing U of M apparel also, and it's not like there was a football game tonight or anything. There was a U of M memorabilia/apparel store on every block downtown, and even one at a mall I went to a few miles from downtown.

There are areas of the campus (particularly the law school) that are absolutely gorgeous. The buildings and surrounding areas look like they were uprooted from an Ivy League school and tossed into little suburban Ann Arbor. Pictures will follow.

Cons:

The campus is huge! Naturally with 40,000 students you'd need a lot of space and buildings, but it was as if the U of M campus was its own city! It was so big in fact that though I was in Ann Arbor for over five hours I didn't get to see all of campus, which was pretty disappointing.

The 40,000 student thing I mentioned earlier. That's on the verge of ridiculous.

So while I was walking around campus I noticed TONS of fraternity and sorority houses. I know already that it's a big part of the school, but that worries me because I don't plan on rushing and am not the frat party kind of guy to be honest.

Sports are huge at U of M and I don't really care about sports, but I don't think that will be a huge deal.

Pictures:

This was a sculpture that was on campus. I thought it was cool because you can actually spin it in circles if you're so inclined.

A view of the law school from across the street. You can see the beautiful buildings peeking through the treetops.

Another shot of one of the law school buildings.

This was the commons area/quad/grassy place in the middle of the law school. The law school surrounds this area and it has tons of GIANT trees which were pretty. 

Here's the (I think) main building of the law school. It looked ancient and beautiful and just looks like an elite law school, you know?

I believe this is the side of one of the law school buildings. I took this picture when I was getting out of the car, before I knew what anything was.

Beautiful library. I can't remember if it was exclusively for the law school or what.

Really awesome modern building near the law school. Not sure what it was for, but it is a U of M building and I know classes take place in there.

Cool commons/quad/whatever. I think they call it a diag. This is basically the center of the whole campus.

Another picture of the law school I think. Ha! It was too pretty to not take tons of pictures.

Overall:

From what I saw, I don't think I would mind going to University of Michigan. It's the first school I've visited, so I'm not sure if I'm being too harsh or too soft on it just yet. The size of the school is not what I am looking for, but once I saw the campus and surrounding areas my worries were somewhat abated.