I ' m a 4 th year senior and I absolutely love NMU . There ' s a good amount of parties , a fun bar scene , and the outdoors are fantastic here given you could put up with the cold . Campus itself is a bit more strict than it used to be I believe , but you could probably get out of living on campus if you ' re Junior standing . Northern is a very very different place it ' s a bit of a bubble in a way that is difficult to describe . When you adjust to the Marquette norm , you ' re adjusting away from reality in most places . It ' s a bit distorted and I think most people realize that by the time they leave Northern . Its little bubble of society is very different from Ann Arbor , NYC , Chicago , etc . But we ' re also at an age where we don ' t need to live in reality , so that ' s its benefit . I live in Ann Arbor and it ' s always a little weird coming home .