Tulane University
Responses from the Student Interview
From a student who identifies as Majors: Finance and Marketing double major
Minor: Spanish
Student Self Identifies as: White Gay Male
Summary
Business fraternity and I give campus tours
Background
Gender Identity: Male
Race/Ethnicity: White
Sexual Orientation: Gay
High School Experience: Private school in Dallas with about 100 students in my class
Majors: Finance and Marketing double major
Minor: Spanish
Extracurricular Activities: Business fraternity and I give campus tours
Did any of your extracurricular activities have a particularly big impact?
Definitely the business fraternity. It’s really awesome. It has some of the social aspects of a frat in that we have social events and mixers, but we also have networking events and can get job advice.
Academic Experience
Can you describe your weekly coursework for your majors?
Tests and presentations usually. You have to present almost every project you do, you don’t just turn it in. For Finance, you do a lot of online homework for the accounting work.
Is there anything that you feel your department does especially well or especially poorly?
Job placement is awesome in Finance. The Career Center for the Business school has their own person for finance. They also offer a lot of opportunities specifically to finance people, like there is a lot of job information and networking opportunities for banks and financial services companies. [In the Freeman School of Business Class of 2017, 86% of students seeking employment were employed.]
How would you describe the learning environment? Do you think it’s particularly competitive or collaborative?
At Tulane I’d say it’s more collaborative. I think Finance is more competitive than Marketing and Spanish. But overall, it’s a pretty collaborative environment, it’s not too cutthroat or so work intensive where you can’t get involved with things outside of class.
What has been your favorite class in your major or minor?
Private Equity and Venture Capital – it’s nice that you can take it early on in your career. It’s a case study-based class so there are lots of projects and things like that.
What has been your least favorite class in your major or minor?
No least favorite.
Reasons to Attend
1) The restaurants. The food here is incredible.
2) The city of New Orleans. Mardi Gras is everything that it seems like it’s going to be and more.
3) If you’re interested in business school out business school is awesome and super specialized. It gets a lot of its own amenities. The career center has a list of alums at all these different places so it’s great with job placement.
4) The community. Tulane people have a lot of love for Tulane people. Everyone is looking out for each other. Like if I see someone I don’t know that is [very drunk] and can’t find their friends or needs help, I will help them out or other people will.
Reasons Not to Attend
1) The dorms here aren’t fancy but not terrible. They’re pretty basic. If you’re looking to live in a palace this is not the place. The houses outside of campus aren’t fancy either.
2) Greek life here isn’t the biggest deal ever. If you’re looking for insane Greek life don’t come here.
3) If you have a lot of trouble balancing partying and schoolwork this is not the place for you because there’s always something going on. If you can’t learn to say no, you’ll have a tough time.
Around Campus
Where have you lived on campus?
Freshman: Monroe in a double with one roommate.
Sophomore: Aaron, it’s an apartment style dorm. It’s usually pretty hard to get into but my roommate had a pretty good time slot
Junior: Off-campus
What was your favorite living situation?
Monroe and Sharpe are the two biggest freshman dorms. They’re a ton of fun and they’re the best dorms freshman year socially. Sophomore year the two most popular dorms are Phelps and Irby. They are 8-person suites with two people per room.
Can you describe the level of safety you’ve experienced on and around campus?
On campus is super safe. They have security guards everywhere. It’s nice that they have security guards and not police officers because people don’t want to avoid them and will go to them for help. They won’t arrest you, they’re just there to make sure people are safe. Right off campus and the neighboring area is definitely less safe than being on campus. There are robberies and petty crime, but I personally feel okay about it. I’ve never been in a situation that’s bad.
What was your favorite off campus restaurant?
Milk Bar right off campus. It’s big Po’ Boy sandwiches and it’s so good. Then Meril’s in the Warehouse District downtown. It’s a New American tapas place. The Warehouse District has great food all around.
What was your favorite place to get away from campus?
Audobon Park. It’s right off of campus so you can go walk there. There’s a running loop that goes through it that’s about 3 miles if you go from campus and around.
Social Opportunities
What kind of weekend activities or nightlife do you like to participate in?
Tulane has a lot of weekday bar nights that are usually around campus. We have The Boot, which is an 18+ bar right on campus, and Bruno’s right off campus. On the weekends there are a lot of Greek events, like frat parties and formals. There are things going on at Tulane Wednesday through Saturday. I tend to skip Thursday and go out Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday.
What is the impact of Greek life on nightlife?
First semester freshman year there is recruiting for Greek life going on because we do second semester rush. There were a ton more frat events on the weekdays and weekends then, like there was happy hour on Wednesdays at The Boot.
Has being gay impacted your nightlife experience at all?
Not really, I feel like Tulane doesn’t really have much of a gay scene. There aren’t a lot of gay bars really. There are some fun ones down on Bourbon Street. There are a lot more fun queer/LGBT events in New Orleans. Southern Decadence is awesome, it’s like Mardi Gras meets Pride. It’s a huge festival and there is lots of LGBT nightlife during that. But other than that, I don’t think it affected me at all. I still rushed social frats and got a bid, but decided not to join because I work 2 jobs so I didn’t have the time to pledge or really commit to it.
Do you participate in the LGBTQ Center at all?
No, I don’t.
How happy were you with the nightlife at Tulane? If you could change anything, what would you change?
No [I wouldn’t change anything], I’m very happy. It’s awesome here. There’s always something going on Wednesday – Saturday and then just being in a city with the best food. There are lots of restaurants that will do happy hour from 10PM to close and those are really popular.
Campus Culture
How did you meet your closest friends?
A few in class. Freshman year we have a 1-hour long class called Tides. It’s a first semester freshman requirement. You basically get to go to class and screw around. Mine was Game of Thrones Tides where we just watched an episode of Game of Thrones each class. The whole point of the class is to meet people. I met a ton of people just through going to the Boot. Freshman year people just go straight there after class, especially during syllabus week.
To what extent do students of different races and sexual orientations mix socially?
In terms of sexual orientation, everyone mixes socially, nobody has a problem with that at all. In terms of race, Tulane is one of the whitest schools in one of the blackest counties in America, which makes it interesting being here. The O [Combined Office of Multicultural Affairs and Office of Gender and Sexual Diversity] is always doing events to promote LGBT stuff and diversity, like they have free lunches. [73% of the Class of 2022 is White. 59% of the population of New Orleans is Black.]
How would you describe the overall social scene at Tulane?
Very vibrant. There’s always something going on. It’s pretty inclusive, as long as you know people you can kind of go to whatever parties you want. If you have friends in a frat they’ll give you a wristband even in if you’re not a brother. Non-Greek guys get invited to sorority formals too.
How would you describe the overall student body?
I’m from Texas, so I’d say Northern. There are a lot of people from the DC Area, Boston, and the NYC suburbs. [About 31% of students come from the Northeast.]
Careers
Has the alumni network helped you find internships or jobs?
Definitely. The business school has special amenities because so many alumni donate specifically to the business school. Lots of alums send job and internship opportunities to the business school career center. The Tulane community is also pretty tight-knit because we’re a small school. I was at a Wells Fargo super day and was the only person from Tulane, and there was 1 employee that was a Tulane alum and she went around the room trying to find me, introduced herself, and I ended up getting an offer directly from her.
Have you learned any computer programs that have been or will be especially helpful professionally?
For the business school, it’s required to do an Excel class. Then in Business Analytics, I learned VBA which is a type of coding but on a super basic level. In the business school everyone does Excel.