George Washington University
Responses from the Student Interview
From a student who identifies as Major: Biomedical Engineering
Minor: None
Student Self Identifies as: White Straight Male
Summary
I on the Club Hockey team, I’m in a fraternity, and I’m also in the ROTC program.
Background
Gender Identity: Male
Race/Ethnicity: White
Sexual Orientation: Straight
High School Experience: Private school in Boulder, CO with a graduating class of about 65 students. There was a culture of going to college.
First-Generation College Student: No
Major: Biomedical Engineering
Minor: None
Extracurricular Activities: I on the Club Hockey team, I’m in a fraternity, and I’m also in the ROTC program.
Did any of your extracurricular activities have a particularly big impact on your experience? In what ways?
Yeah, I’d say all three really do. Listing them in order, it would be ROTC, Hockey, and then my fraternity. ROTC has a big impact because I’m a scholarship winner, which means I go to every ROTC event. We have early morning physical training Tuesdays and Thursdays with optional ones on Mondays and Fridays. We have a lab on Wednesday mornings and a class in the morning as well. About once a month we’ll go on a field training exercise to the [Marine Corps Base], Quantico.
Academic Experience
Can you describe the weekly coursework for your Biomedical Engineering major?
I have a Biomedical Engineering (BME) seminar class, and a programing class. For the BME seminar, it’s less of a class as it is an introduction to engineering-type class. I haven’t gotten a ton of value out of it, but the programming class is very focused on MATLAB programming. It’s about how you can apply that to a career within biomedical engineering. The workload is pretty standard, I normally treat it like every other course I’m taking. All of my classes have a problem set or online homework, and a lot of it is exam-based.
Is there anything you feel the Biomedical Engineering department does especially well or poorly?
I’d say all of the School of Engineering & Applied Science is really good at not just keeping you involved with lectures, but having group work where we’re in six to seven-person groups and we’re problem-solving.
How would you describe the learning environment? Do you think it’s particularly collaborative or competitive?
I’d say it leans more to the collaborative side, which is good. Those six to seven-person groups really break it down to where one person can lead, and people are constantly working together in teams instead of by themselves. They also have a capstone project your senior year where you work in a two to the three-person team to design a project before you graduate. I think it’s really building that idea of working in a team, which isn’t necessarily thought of a lot in engineering. You have to delegate responsibilities and spread out the work so you’re not overloaded.
How accessible are your professors?
Incredibly accessible. Everyone posts their office hours in the syllabus and they’re always at their office hours. Occasionally, there are periods when there is a lot of traffic in their office right before an exam so if you have a quick question that can be difficult. Outside of that, they’re always where they say they’re going to be.
Why did you pick your major? Are you happy with your choice?
My mother is a research scientist and my dad is an electrical engineer. Growing up, I liked both of those professions, so biomedical engineering is a pretty solid combination of those and the fields it has are pretty interesting to me.
How was transitioning academically as a freshman? Are there systems in place that help you transition?
I’d say my high school did a good job of preparing me for college. The biggest shift for me has been time management when it comes to having a lot of time out of class that feels like free time but isn’t because it’s time you should be doing work. You only spend maybe three hours in class or lecture over the week for one class, but you have a lot of work to do outside of the classroom. GW does offer a couple of programs like PAL study halls, but ROTC helped me more in terms of time management because they have a very scheduled program they follow. You break down your day into sections that you can do work but also have some free time at the end of the day.
Reasons to Attend
1) The location. D.C. is awesome and there’s always something going on. You’re surrounded by the monuments and a ton of history which is awesome.
2) They’re building a lot of new buildings that are really beautiful. The Science & Engineering building is incredible and is a great place to study in.
3) The academics here are pretty good. The core classes are a slow jog, but once you get in your specialized classes they all look super interesting. I know the International Affairs Program here is good.
Reasons Not to Attend
1) There are some cons to the location. I know some people don’t like big cities. It’s one of those places where the campus isn’t super defined, so when I was looking at colleges, one of the things I wanted was the feeling that I was on a campus. You kind of lose that being a city school, but I don’t think it’s too much of a con.
2) The sports here aren’t incredible. We are a Division I school, but there are no big football games, and the basketball team is mediocre right now. It’s not something where students all go to a basketball game on a Saturday night.
Around Campus
Where have you lived on campus?
Freshman: West Hall on Mount Vernon Campus with three other roommates.
How do you like living on Mount Vernon Campus?
I have to take a bus to campus every day. There is some novelty in being able to come home, but it does get old pretty fast. The extra time it requires to get down to campus, especially being in D.C. the traffic can be unreliable at times. Sometimes right before a big exam, I might get on a bus thirty minutes before, and some days I’ll get down there in 10 minutes while other days it’ll take me 50 minutes. I have to plan my schedule around transportation, which is hard. I’d say in terms of the campus I live on itself is really pretty. It’s a great part of town. I also think the dorm I’m living in is especially nice and it has the only cafeteria on GW’s property, so it’s nice to down there for dinner.
How was transitioning from Boulder, CO to Washington, D.C?
It was a big change. I lived just outside of Boulder, but even then, Boulder isn’t a huge town. D.C is really big and there’s a lot of important stuff going on here. It’s been really fun because I’ll be walking to my class or coming home in the afternoon and I’ll see the presidential motorcade or somebody important driving by in a bunch of blacked-out SUVs. The location change has been pretty large in terms of going from a town to a city, but I’ve really enjoyed it.
Can you describe the level of safety you’ve experienced on and around campus?
It’s an open campus in the middle of the city, so sometimes you’re going to get some weird people on campus. That being said, we have a strong university police department. It feels really safe, and anytime there’s a problem they send out alerts. Everything is well taken care of.
Social Opportunities
What kind of nightlife or weekend activities do you participate in?
I am in a fraternity, so there definitely is some nightlife there. There are a bunch of clubs around the area, but it’s also fun to go see the monuments and the White House at night when there aren’t hundreds of people outside and around it. I wake up pretty early in the mornings during the week, so it’s cool to see the monuments at sunrise.
What nights of the week do you like to go out? Are there certain things you do on certain nights?
Thursday and Saturday nights are pretty big here. Surprisingly, lately some Wednesdays have been pretty big, but I have classes on Thursday. Most of the time I’ll go to a fraternity party, but other nights I’m going out to 18+ clubs as well.
Where are the weekend events located?
Because we’re in the middle of the city, all the parties are house parties. They are small and packed, which is fun at times but at other times you may want to go somewhere to watch a sports game. There are clubs where you can dance with loudspeakers and great DJs. There’s a lot of great stuff going on. The biggest scenes are the house party style, then clubs and bars. Parties can become more exclusive because there’s not a lot of space. Everything is pretty close and all the fraternities and sororities are in the same area, so there’s not a lot of noise complaints.
What is the impact of Greek life on nightlife?
Outside of pledging and initiation, it’s not super huge. It’s really what you make of it. You can have a lot of involvement in your fraternity, and the benefits that you reap depend on what you do within the fraternity. [About 20% of students are involved in Greek life.]
How happy are you with the nightlife options at GW? Is there anything you would change if you could?
I have a couple of friends at big state schools, and sometimes I think that looks super fun when there are two hundred people in the backyard of some fraternity mansion, but at the same time, I don’t know if I could do that every weekend. I enjoy the fact that maybe one night and then another night I can stay in and go to a house party, or some nights just stay in with a couple of my close friends and watch a movie or something.
Campus Culture
How did you meet your closest friends?
I met them through my classes, the hockey team, and the programs I’m involved in. It’s important to be extroverted in classes because not only will that help you make good friends, but it’ll make great study partners which help when there’s a test you don’t fully understand and someone else might know the material better. Also, it’s my opinion that teaching someone else the material gives you a strong understanding of it as well.
How would you describe the overall social scene at GW?
It can feel a little cliquey at times, but that is the result of other people not wanting to be part of a group. There’s no group or program you can’t join, it just comes down to whether you want to sit in your dorm room at night, which is perfectly fine, or if you want to go out and try to make new friends. In those first couple of weeks, it’s really important to go out and make as many friends as you can. You’ll lose a couple here and there, but in the process, you’ll gain a lot more than you’ll lose. I don’t think being in a city has a huge impact. I feel like there’s a cloud of energy being in a city that is work, work, work, but it’s occasionally nice to find the group of friends that likes to sit back and relax on the weekends. It’s also good to have that energy around you when you’re in the middle of the week and you have to grind.
To what extent do people of different races and sexual orientations mix socially?
I’d say pretty well. GW is a very inclusive school, and they do a lot of training and education on diversity. I’ve always been one of those people where it doesn’t matter what you are as much as who you are, and I think a lot of the groups here follow that. If you’re a good person you’re going to make a lot of friends.
How would you describe the student body?
In terms of personality, we could be generalized as a group of people that like to learn, and that loves the city they’re in. There’s a lot of pride in the location of this school. Also, there’s the classic college mindset that I need to get work done, but I’m also here to have a good time.
To what extent do people in Greek life and not in Greek life mix socially?
I think the friends you have depends on where you are in terms of what organizations and buildings you’re in. If you only go to the Greek life rush events, pledge one fraternity, and only hang out with those people, you’ll only have friends in Greek life. If you’re making friends in class and are joining other organizations and making friends there, you’ll find friends outside of Greek life. It’s not an exclusive thing where Greek life says once you’re in a fraternity or sorority you can only have friends within those groups. They encourage branching out because sticking to only one thing isn’t super healthy.
How do you like the size of GW in terms of undergraduate enrollment? How has that impacted your experience? [There are about 12,000 undergraduate students.]
I came from a small high school and I’d say this is a medium-sized school. It’s really great for me because my average class size is probably 50-60 students, which when it comes down to it was the size of my graduating class so it can be strange sometimes. You’ll meet somebody and then realize they have been in your class the whole semester. For me, because it’s not a 200 to 300-person lecture, I can still maintain focus. When it comes to classroom size, as long as you’re sitting somewhere near the front you’re not really facing too many distractions from people next to you, I think you’ll be okay. [The average class size is 29 students.]
Careers
Have you learned any computer programs or computer languages that will be helpful professionally?
I’m taking a MATLAB class currently, and I’ve been taught a little bit of Python in my Biomedical Engineering seminar.