Our renowned graduate programs and expert faculty may have first attracted you to IU. You’ll quickly fall in love with Bloomington, a Midwestern hub known for international culture, the arts, and natural beauty.
IU welcomes students and faculty from around the world. We have grocery stores with a half-dozen different brands of kimchi. You can look at a great collection of Japanese woodblock prints, walk outside, and hear tabla rhythms or bagpipe drones in a public park. Afghan and Tibetan restaurants are within a couple blocks of Indian and Cajun restaurants. Buddhists, Muslims, Christians, and Jews serve on local committees together.
Learn more about graduate student life from our emissaries for Graduate Student Diversity.
Bloomington may be the world leader in orchestra performances per capita. Original plays are premiered here every year. The nightlife is richly varied, from hip-hop to gospel to samba to bluegrass. There’s a thriving art scene. Broadway touring shows make frequent stops at IU. There’s dancing. Bands. Performance. Poetry. Film. There’s just about always too much to do.
IU Bloomington is beautiful—the heart of the campus is a quadrangle surrounding a small forest. Bloomington is ringed by state parks, golf courses, nature preserves, lakes, and a national forest.
IU’s libraries have been named the best in the nation by the Association of College and Research Libraries. They have more than 9 million books and subscriptions to 43,000 journals. The I.M. Pei-designed art museum holds some of the world’s most internationally acclaimed collections. IU Bloomington is home to two supercomputers, campuswide WiFi, and a massive data storage system.
The campus is just 50 minutes from the Indianapolis International Airport and four hours by car from Chicago. Bloomington’s low cost of living—relative to major research universities in the Midwest and beyond—coupled with its proximity to major cities makes it an approachable home city with access to major resources.
Lastly, IU Bloomington is a friendly place. There is a level of politeness and caring that makes visitors feel welcome, and residents feel at ease. There’s not a lot of cutting in lines. Crime is low, the air is clean, and people volunteer to help each other.
See for yourself.
