Vanderbilt is located a few miles west of downtown Nashville, TN on a 350-acre campus crisscrossed by walkways and studded with dogwoods, redbuds, and ancient magnolias. Nashville is the capital of the state and an important center of education and culture, as well as a major transportation hub. In this city of well over half a million people, there are more than a dozen institutions of higher learning that enrich the intellectual interests and social outlook of the community in many ways.

Nicknamed "Music City, USA," Nashville is famous for gospel, country, bluegrass, and traditional music, most notably the Grand Ole Opry. In addition, Nashville offers symphony, opera, dance, and dramatic performances. The Tennessee Performing Arts Center in downtown Nashville, home to five professional companies (the Nashville Opera, Tennessee Repertory Theater, Tennessee Dance Theater, Nashville Ballet, and Tennessee Opera Theater) and a venerable amateur theater troupe, Circle Players, also welcomes a variety of local and national touring artists, and acts as a nexus of performing arts energy in the city. Another professional company located at the newly constructed Schermerhorn Symphony Center is the Nashville Symphony, including the Nashville Symphony Orchestra and the Nashville Symphony Chorus.  More than a dozen other professional, semi-professional, and community theaters in the Nashville area feature regular productions of avant-garde and experimental plays, traditional dramas, comedy revues, modern dance, dinner theater, and Shakespeare-in-the-Park. In addition, a large number of internationally famous music, dance, and theater groups include Vanderbilt in their touring schedule.

Nashville is also home for several prefessional sports teams: the Tennessee Titans (NFL), the Nashville Predators (NHL), and a popular minor league baseball team, the Nashville Sounds.

Nestled in the central basin of Tennessee and rimmed by wooded hills, Nashville has an unusually large public park system with ample opportunities for golf, tennis, hiking, and horseback riding (including an annual steeplechase). Two large lakes---Old Hickory and Percy Priest---are within thirty minutes from campus and give easy access to fishing, boating, and water-skiing. The city itself has facilities for many indoor and outdoor sports, including ice skating.

The limestone hills and plateaus of Middle Tennessee are honeycombed with caves and crisscrossed by streams and rivers, providing opportunities for caving, rock climbing, and river recreation from scenic float trips to whitewater rafting. The Great Smoky Mountains National Park in East Tennessee, a four-hour drive away, offers miles of beautiful hiking trails. The climate is mild; winter is short, while spring and fall are delightfully long.