Stephanie B.
Yelp
Ahhhh, there sure are some perks to being a scout for Yelp...I had the authority to go in and change it to: THE Ohio State University. That's better.
I think it's great that so many people from outside of Ohio have reviewed OSU and still think it's great - you don't even have to attend college here to become infected with Buckeye Pride!
As for me, I attended OSU for 5 wonderful years! I loved it! There are some downsides here and there, but all in all I had a really good experience.
I lived in the Neil Building on campus, and boy was I lucky. I'd been in many of the other residence halls and they were old and smelly. Neil was brand new, and I was in rooms with 3 other girls, where we had our own full-size kitchen with a dishwasher, living room, and you shared a bedroom and bathroom with one other person. It was awesome as far as dorm living goes. It didn't really feel like a dorm, but it still had that dorm feel. Guys are girls were on the same floor and drinking was allowed in our building. The building was for grad students and honor students, but I think now the basketball players live there.
I'm not sure how I'd feel if I didn't get to live there, but I suppose I probably would have chosen to live off campus. I loved how you rarely had to leave campus for anything - it was like its own mini-city within the city. But that made it really easy if you didn't have a car. You could walk to the store - Aveda's hair salon was even right across the street from my dorm! There were restaurants right there on campus, as well as many of the dining hall options. The Marketplace, a nice campus dining hall, was on the first floor of my building.
Of course, once I did bring my car to campus it was hell. I paid about $350 for a parking pass for the year, but I did get to park my car at a lot right across the street from my dorm and leave it overnight. I guess it's nice that I had the option, I just wish it wasn't so expensive. There was always parking at night, but during the day I might drive around for an hour trying to find a spot since so many students drove to campus to go to class. Personally, I think that's ridiculous. If you need to go to OSU for any reason, but especially everyday for class - find a way to walk!
OSU offered a lot of helpful services. I frequently visited my career advisor and he was really great at helping me get internships during college. OSU has the greatest gym, the RPAC, equipped with everything you might need for a great workout. There were all kinds of study rooms and resources, and the Younkin Success Center offered tutoring and helpful tips. The library was also awesome. It was pretty easy to get your hands on any book you needed.
Since OSU is a state school, it really wasn't that expensive, and although I'll be paying off my student loans for quite some time, I know it could have been a lot worse.
And how about those Buckeyes? It's so great going to a school where people have so much pride in their team. OSU is crazy about their athletics, but in a good way. Nothing beats tailgating and get going to a game in the Shoe, then celebrating OSU's win at the bars on High St. This is the life of an OSU student.
Since OSU is so huge, there's always something going on. There are groups and clubs for just about anything, and I'm talking aside from sororities and fraternities. The Oval is a great place to check out what's going on because that's where a lot of campus activities go on, or people just like to hang out and throw frisbees.
OSU has a pretty campus, and I'm particularly thinking of Mirror Lake and Ohio Stadium. Mirror Lake is really peaceful (aside from the night hundreds of students jump in it before the Michigan game) and families of ducks reside here. Ohio Stadium is just a beautiful structure.
There are some real downsides to OSU. If you don't like big campuses, you wouldn't like this. But I found that I very often ran into people I knew. Like I mentioned, I'd rather chew nails than try to park on campus, and once you graduate, they keep mailing you donation forms. I've spent enough money there, and I'll be paying it off for years, thanks. It's also a pain to talk to people in the offices since they're so busy. If you call an office, like Housing or something, you're on hold for half an hour. Everyone's usually really nice when you do finally talk to them, though.
As a grad, I hate how we have to pay $7 for each transcript copy. In some ways OSU is crazy with charging you for things.
I had plenty of smaller classes, but I know some of them are insanely huge. That's not my thing so I tried to stick to the non-popular classes.
It's a great school. They offer a wide variety of majors, so if you are picking out a college, especially if you live in Ohio, think about it. At least you wouldn't have to pay out-of-state tuition!