From the farmers market to the film festival to Friday-night open mikes, there’s so much more to this river city than you might expect. It’s a little bit of everything that you’d find anywhere else, but flavored by Wisconsin, the Midwest, and its diverse inhabitants. Some would say it’s an acquired taste. To them, we say: What, you don’t like cheese curds?

Anchored at the southernmost border of the state, this city of 37,000 is big enough to offer cultural accoutrements like a professional symphony and an international film festival. For someone from a bustling metropolis, Beloit might seem small, but, according to one native New Yorker, not full of small-minded people.

[Beloit & Beyond]But don’t just take our word for it. In a spring 2010 interview in Pitchfork Magazine, indie-punk band Titus Andronicus named Beloit, Wisconsin, one of its two favorite places to play on earth. Why? Both it and Evreux, France, are “full of decent, goodhearted, salt-of-the-earth people, who are free of pretension and just want to have a good time,” they said, after playing a gig in the campus pub, the C-Haus.

[Beyond Beloit] 

[Beloit & Beyond]Beloit’s only about an hour-and-a-half drive from Chicago and Milwaukee—O’Hare International Airport is just a quick and easy bus ride away—and the state capital, Madison, is just a 45-minute drive on Interstate 90, all rife with cultural goodies and internship opportunities galore. But with multiple events happening on campus every night, the problem is not usually what to do, but deciding which lecture or friend’s student-produced play/band you’ll have to miss.

Learn more about Beloit College by visiting the Admissions Web pages, where you can Apply, view Fast Facts, read what students say about the college (and their classmates), or schedule a visit, among other things.