Northwestern University

INTRODUCTION ON NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY

Northwestern University (NU) has been a private research university located in Evanston, Illinois and has campuses in Chicago, Illinois, San Francisco, California and Doha, Qatar. Comprised of 12 schools and colleges, Northwestern university  offers hundred and twenty four undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees.

Northwestern university was founded in the year 1851 by John Evans, for whom the City of Evanston is named after, and also 8 other lawyers, businessmen and Methodist leaders. Its initial founding purpose was to serve the Northwest Territory which is an area that today includes the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and parts of Minnesota.In the moment, the main campus is a 240-acre parcel in Evanston, just along the shores of Lake Michigan by twelve miles north of downtown Chicago. The Northwestern university's law, medical, and professional schools are based on a 25-acre campus in Chicago's neighborhood Streeterville. In the year 2008, the university had opened a campus in Education City, Doha, Qatar with programs relating journalism and communication.

ACADEMICS AT NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY

This university is a large residential research university which is accredited by the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools and the respective national professional organizations in the field of chemistry, psychology, business, education, journalism, music, engineering, law, and medicine. The university offers approximately 124 undergraduate programs and around 145 graduate and professional programs. Northwestern university has already conferred 2,190 bachelor's degrees, 3,272 master's degrees, 565 doctoral degrees, and 444 professional degrees between the year 2012–2013.

The 4-year, full-time undergraduate program includes the majority of enrollments at the university and also emphasizes instruction in the arts and sciences, plus the professions of engineering, journalism, communication, music, and education. Although a basic foundation in the liberal arts and sciences is must in all majors, there is no required common core curriculum; individual degree requirements are set by the faculty of each school itself. Northwestern university's full-time undergraduate and graduate programs operate on an average of 10-week academic quarter system with the academic year beginning by the late September and ending in early June. Undergraduates typically take 4 courses each quarter and 12 courses in an academic year and are also required to complete minimum of twelve quarters on campus to get graduated. Northwestern university has always been offering honors, accelerated, and joint degree programs in medicine, science, mathematics, engineering, and journalism. The comprehensive doctoral graduate program has a high co-existence with undergraduate programs.


LIBRARIES AND MUSEUM AT NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY

University Library made in 1970 has a Brutalist style. The Northwestern university's library system is formed out of four libraries on the Evanston campus including the present main library (University Library) and the original library building (Deering Library) 3 libraries on the Chicago campus; and the library affiliated with Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary. The University Library contains over more than 4.9 million volumes, 4.6 million microforms, and almost 99,000 periodicals making it  the thirteeth largest university library in the whole North America and the tenth largest library among private universities. Notable collections in the library system include the Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies, an extensive collection of early edition printed music, the largest Africana collection in the world and manuscripts as well as late-modern works, and an art collection noted for its 19th and 20th-century Western art and architecture periodicals.Also the library system participates with fifteen other universities in digitizing its collections as a part of the Google Book Search project. The Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art is a major art museum in Chicago which contains more than 4,000 works in its permanent collection as well as dedicating a 3rd of its space to temporary and traveling exhibitions.