Northwestern University
Hallmarks and Quirks
Things I'm Good At:
- Community service. I love when my students give back and I even have my own Development Corps (NCDC) to help them reach out all over the country.
- Debate Society. Mine has won more championships than any other university. Try to debate that. Just try. See? You can't.
- Dancing. I've got a thirty-hour Dance Marathon each year to raise money for charity.
- Ultimate Frisbee. We have an official team here on campus.
- Economics and journalism. I've got some of the best programs in the country. But don't overlook the film, drama, business, music, and premed programs; they're all top notch. Okay, now I'm just starting to brag...
My Top 5 Must-Haves:
- Paint. Whenever something's happening on campus, The Rock (not Dwayne Johnson) gets a fresh coat of paint from students who want to highlight their event. Free advertising, anyone?
- A good set of lungs for Primal Scream. The Sunday before finals week at 9:00PM, everyone opens their windows and screams and loud as they can. It gets rid of stress, they say.
- A walk through Weber Arch during Wildcat Welcome. It's your official welcome as a freshman, complete with cheers and hollers from upperclassmen.
- Keys. People jingle their keys during football games to say that the other team will have to park their cars one day. It's a great way to deal with losing all the time.
- Comfy shoes for Dillo Day, a campus concert series in the spring.
Why You Might Have Heard of Me:
- My mascot used to be called Furpaw, and was a real bear cub from Lincoln Park Zoo. After a while, the team thought he was bad luck and fired him.
- Our records in football are the kind you don't want to have. We've had the longest losing streak in history.
- Back in 2003, a student helped exonerate a death row inmate, which lead the governor to stop all executions. We save lives here.
- I'm featured prominently in the pilot episode of "The Newsroom." Look, Mom, I'm famous!
On a regular Saturday night, you can find me...
I'm probably getting my groove on at Bobb-McCullough. There's a reason it's considered the number one party dorm in the nation, and it all goes down on Saturday night.
Favorite Hangouts:
- Wiener and Still Champion. How about a side of fried pickle chips with that burger?
- Lou Malnati's or Giordano's. You'll hear a lot of people here argue about which is better, but you can't go wrong either way. Nothing says Chicago like pizza.
- Mt. Everest Restaurant. Can't beat their buffet.
- Mustard's Last Stand. Best. Dawgs. Ever.
- Burger King. No, really. I'm a classy gentleman, what can I say?
Quirks:
- Why are there fences around campus, you ask? That's to keep out the cattle, of course—or at least that was the reason when they were originally built in the 1860s.
- Sometimes, students throw marshmallows on the field at football games. No one knows why.
- I almost joined up with the University of Chicago back in the day (1930s), but we decided to go our separate ways.
- Purple clock tower. Whenever my teams win, the clock tower gets lit up in purple to show its team pride.
Famous Alumni:
- Hugh Hefner
- Seth Myers
- Stephen Colbert
- Julia Louis-Dreyfus
- Kristen Schaal
- Zooey Deschanel
- Zach Braff, of Garden State fame
- Cindy Crawford
- Cloris Leachman
- Douglas Conant, president and CEO, Campbell Soup Company