University of Minnesota

About Me

Intro

Are you the flannel-wearing, craft beer-drinking, "all organic" type? Well, Shmooper, you may have just found your dream school. Though you'll find every type of person, from the science geek to the ultimate Frisbee jock to the staunch political activist on campus, the overwhelming vibe at the University of Minnesota is so not mainstream.

Hipsters turn you off, you say? Keep in mind, hipsters and non-hipsters alike benefit from the side effects of my vibe, namely great music, delicious food, and an awesome theater and arts scene. My students have a ball taking advantage of all that Minneapolis (a hipsterville itself) has to offer—even during those long winter months. Ever taken a sled down the city streets? #livingontheedge.

Name

Goldy Gopher

Hometown

The winter wonderland—okay, maybe not always so wonderland—of Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Birthdate

1851

Body Type

With 34,449 undergraduate students on a 1,204-acre campus, you can go to class in your frumpiest PJs without worrying about catching the eye of any judgy peers. However, 34,000 can feel smaller than it seems—you'll definitely see some familiar faces when you're out and about.

Current Living Situation

Generally, freshmen live in the dorms. Some of my dorms are hippie havens, filled with Birkenstocks and tie-dye. Others are basically large-scale frat houses, in which you'll hear music pumping into the wee hours of the morning…every night of the week.

Other dorms are super study-focused, and you'll see a lot of all-night study parties and pizza-fueled group projects in the lounges. A few of them are "historic," which means they're awesome, beautiful brick buildings.

However, "historic" sometimes also means a lack of AC and absurdly skinny hallways (Like, really? People were that small back then?), so make sure you think hard about where you want to be.

Upperclassmen generally live in my swanky on-campus apartments or in old houses near the U's weekend hangout spot, Dinkytown. These old houses are absolutely enormous, so you can expect to bunk up with ten to twenty people. If you love people and want to be within walking distance of campus's best bars and restaurants, these houses are for you.

Relationship Status

Although I don't have many enemies (the whole "Minnesota Nice" thing is definitely real), I do have my spats with a few competitors, namely the University of Wisconsin Badgers.

Though you'd expect the battles between two rodents to be pretty tame, the rivalry between the Gophers and the Badgers can be surprisingly vicious. This is definitely most evident during hockey season, when our teams battle it out to see who owns the ice in the Midwest.

You should apply to me if...

you look good in a lab coat—the research opportunities at my school are awesome and endless.