I expected John Hopkins University to be a gritty, urban campus and was I surprised! It is located on a pretty, peaceful and spacious parcel of land, not far from the pleasant Inner Harbor of Baltimore. The beauty of the campus has not missed notice by Hollywood - Hopkins stood in for Harvard in The Social Network. Hopkins has 5000 undergraduates and about a third of them are engineers. The sciences are popular here but the university has a full complement of majors to choose from and in fact, international relations is the most popular major. Notable programs also include French, film and media studies, creative writing, art history and public health. Some classes for freshmen may have several hundred students and include a section taught by a teaching assistant. Most students have multiple majors and minors, due in part to the flexible distribution requirements.
One of the hallmarks of Johns Hopkins University is the amount of research of all kinds that is done here as they receive more money for research than any other educational institution. Students are encouraged to participate both as research subjects and as assistants to their professors and most do. The students here are a busy, serious crowd of high achieving young men and women.
