University of Michigan
Hallmarks and Quirks
Things I'm Good At:
- Football. I have the most all-time wins in NCAA football and I'm not letting that distinction go anytime soon. Football is a bigdeal here. Seriously. My students recently held a protest against our Athletic Director because he wasn't up to Michigan's standards. Yikes.
- Engineering. Nine programs are ranked in the top ten nationally. You know, not to brag or anything.
- Business. The Ross School of Business has the second-best undergrad program in the country.
My Top 5 Must-Haves:
- Season football tickets. Like I said, it's a big deal.
- A down parka. For five months out of the year, this will be your best friend. My single snow day last year was the first snow day in forty years. Forty. I don't stop because of a little frozen water.
- Good walking shoes. Ann Arbor has so much to offer outside of my campus, with hundreds of restaurants, stores, concert venues, nightclubs…the list goes on and on. So yeah, you'll be doing some walking.
- Coffee. Tons of it. The Michigan work ethic is one in which sleep is recommended, but not required. Okay, not really, but you'll find that a lot of people pull all-nighters around here.
- Clothes with my logo. This should really be on your person at all times. How else will you let everyone you meet know you're a super-human with wizard-like multi-tasking abilities?
Why You Might Have Heard of Me:
- How can you not have heard of me? I mean, Harvard is the Michigan of the East.
- My athletics are legendary, and have been so since the beginning. Did you know I actually taught Notre Dame to play football back in the 1800s?
- I have one of the top medical schools in the country, for both research and primary care.
On a regular Saturday night, you can find me...
Off-campus Ann Arbor has endless amounts of restaurants and bars to visit if you've got extra cash, so I'll probably be there. If you don't want to take out a second mortgage on your house, though, you can crash UMix late night events, put on by yours truly. There's a lot of free food, movies, and themed events.
If that doesn't interest you, then you're clearly a weirdo. Just kidding—you can always just visit the off-campus neighborhoods, where all of the fraternities and at least one house on every street will be "turning up," as the kids say these days.
Favorite Hangouts:
- If you're the outdoorsy type, then the Nichols Arboretum is the place to be. Many claim it's the place for stoners, but it's also the host to many outdoor performances, nature jogs, and picnics.
- Working hard and playing hard means (surprise) you'll have a lot of studying to do, so students are often in one of the libraries on campus. There's the Ugli (formally known as the Shapiro Undergrad) on Central Campus and the Dude (Duderstadt) on North Campus for the engineering nerds. Different floors have varying levels of volume for any type of studying. It doesn't have to be boring; study groups are a great way to meet people, too.
- State street has some pretty fantastic restaurants, like Mr. Spots, which has fantastic cheese steaks and waffle-cut fries.
Quirks:
- Co-ops are famous here. There are eighteen houses on campus, providing homes for hundreds of hipsters.
- I'm so big that they ran out of room on Central campus while expanding. Yep, they had to move two dorms and the Engineering, Art/Design, and Music schools two miles away. The Blue Bus that transports students is practically part of student culture. Watch out for the late night Saturday bus, though. It ain't called "vomit comet" for nothin'.
- Rumor has it that couples that kiss under the engineering arch will get married someday. Score one for nerdy engineers.
- There's a man who plays the harmonica and washboard outside nearly every day. Most students just assume he's a homeless street performer, but he actually works at the university.
Famous Alumni:
- Darth Vader. And Mufasa. I'm not joking. If that doesn't convince someone to go here, I don't know what will. Okay, it was actually James Earl Jones, the voice of Darth Vader and Mufasa, that went here—but, you know, same thing.
- Darren Criss, arguably the best actor on Glee.
- Richard Costolo, CEO of Twitter. Now, every time you tweet about your breakfast, you can thank the great education I have to offer.
- Lucy Liu, actress most famous for Charlie's Angels and Kill Bill.
- Gerald Ford, the 38th POTUS.
- Tom Brady, the guy with three Superbowl rings.