If you’ve seen “National Treasure: Book of Secrets,” then you are already somewhat-familiar with the UMD grounds. Yes, the movie was filmed on campus, Nicholas Cage and all. Founded in 1856 and burned to the ground (except for Morrill Hall) in 1912, the campus is noted for the red-brick Georgian buildings surrounding McKlendin Mall, the large central lawn. Stroll among the 7,500 documented trees and garden plantings and you’ll quickly realize why the campus has been designated as the UMD Arboretum & Botanical Garden. Walk near Stamp Student Union on Campus Drive to find Jim Henson (class of 1960) and Kermit the Frog seated on a park bench. The street crosses Regents Drive at M Circle, where the letter is always in bloom with red flowers.

If you have a computer with high-speed Internet access and the skills to navigate it, you can take courses taught by university professors who divide their time between in-class and online instruction. UMD offers an online learning environment that allows you to engage with faculty and fellow students using the latest eLearning technology. The nice thing is you won’t be going it alone. ELMS (Enterprise Learning Management System) provides access to syllabi, schedules, announcements, and lecture notes as well as facilitating discussion groups and live chats. “Keep Learning,” the buzzwords of OES (Office of Extended Studies) allows you to take free non-credit interactive courses taught by UMD faculty in a variety of areas such as entrepreneurship, understanding terrorism, programming mobile apps, and software/hardware security.

UMD is a member of the Big 10, which includes schools such as Indiana, Michigan, Michigan State, Northwestern, Ohio State, Penn State, and Rutgers. Maryland sponsors 20 men’s and women’s varsity teams. No wonder men’s basketball is one of the most popular – the team has made two Final Four appearances and won it all in 2002. Not to be outdone, the Lady Terps took their first NCAA national title four years later. If you attend a game played on Williams Court at XFINITY Center, be sure to dress in the school colors of red, white, black, and gold to match those on the state flag. You’ll be led in a cheer by Testudo, the diamondback terrapin mascot. That’s right, a ferocious turtle. Those who can’t imagine an autumn Saturday without football will be led by the Mighty Sound of Maryland marching band, which deliveres pre-game performances, then converts to the UMD Pep Band for basketball season.

Maryland is tied for 57th in the 2016 “US News & World Report” rankings of national universities and 13 areas of study are among the magazine’s top 100, including geoscience (14th), physics (18th), economics and business (22nd) and space science (23rd). The university offers its 90 undergraduate majors, where students can pick one of two areas or create their own individual studies program, and 106 masters and 83 doctoral degree programs across 14 colleges. You can even explore a new interest with a minor or certificate, participate in a pre-professional program, or be among the approximately 1,000 undergraduates invited each year into the highly-selective honors college. When fully built, M Square, the state’s largest research park, will encompass two million square feet in a public-private partnership. Its physical and programmatic location links students, staff, and researchers with federal laboratories and private sector companies to explore environmental and earth sciences, food safety and agricultural police, and language and national security. The university congratulates its own with the UMD Invention of the Year awards. The winners for 2013, for example, developed a better material for the 3D printing of vascular implants, a new technology that makes cloud storage more secure and efficient, and a low-cost, high-energy solid state lithium-ion battery.