The Georgia Institute of Technology

-Avoid on-campus housing, even in your first year. You have no control over who your roommates will be until after you have paid your contract (and then only, housing does not refund to my knowledge - you can only change to somewhere else on campus). Sure, you can specify your desired roommates in your application and most of the time, you should get them (if they specify also, that they want to room with you), but it is not always easy to guarantee you will have great chemistry with your roommates (just because they are friends, doesn't mean you will successfully share the same space). Since you pay the whole 3-4 month housing fee up front, do you want to take a chance of wasting your money? I sure wish I can gone off-campus to a single room apartment, living alone, throughout my years at Georgia Tech (until I found my awesome life partner, of course). I sure got burned by my roommates. At one point, my ultra-conservative roommates decided to complain about me because my boyfriend slept over too much (IN MY OWN ROOM in an apartment with shared bathrooms). Oh, the walls are too thin for sex in the apartments. Sure, I can see their point..NOW, that I finally do live in a decent apartment off-campus with my life partner (where the walls are NOT thin, thankfully). At another point, when I actually shared a room rather than an apartment, I had no privacy at all, with my roommate' friends constantly coming in and going and having a party at any time. So, it seems I have experienced both irritating others and being irritated myself. I sure wish all my energy had not been soaked up by roommates. SO DO STAY OFF-CAMPUS OR BE VERY SURE YOU ARE STAYING WITH ROOMMATES AT EACH POINT WHO YOU CAN ENJOY A PLEASANT ENVIRONMENT WITH. I guess my advice is hardly Georgia Tech-centric, but I was badly burned. (Oh and you don't want to deal with housing officials who often have a policeman-like attitude towards students. One guy decided he would threaten me and show his power, even though I was sobbing helplessly in his office AND NOT PICKING A FIGHT WITH HIM).

-Student solutions at Georgia Tech? Argue with your professors too much or mention you want to drop out of Georgia Tech? Rather than experience professors changing their ways and trying to be more accommodating and teach better (and I will get to how lackluster and boring the teachers are in a second), you are referred to school authorities, who force you to go into therapy or medications. Another stupid mistake that came from speaking my mind to my professor (and I wasn't even insulting him/her in anyway, I just mentioned I was considering leaving Georgia Tech). No one ever actually helped me solve my problems there (like help me explore better housing options for myself off-campus, or help me explore my interests more, or help me find more interesting classes/professors). Instead I was put on stupid meds that continue to have side effects to this day.

-But now, I understand, why no one at Georgia Tech could actually help me live a better life there and learn. Not the professors, not the Dean of Students office. It is because that stupid university is just not set up for a person like me. It took me too long to understand that. I sure regret the years I spent there.

Oh, let me tell you about the teaching..
Lackluster and pointless..they never gave feedback on grade on your paper. I went to a high school where teachers were far more interested in giving individualized feedback to me, but here, the best you could expect are answers released for everyone in the class. No red scribbling on the margins of the homework you worked so hard in, explaining how you got 17/20..just 17/20. It hardly matters whether you are taking senior or freshmen classes, most of the classes were like this only (and some lower level classes were half or fully multiple choice), which hardly merits paying such high tuition..even at instate rates. How the hell does Georgia Tech distinguish itself from other so-called party schools with lower admissions standards, if it follows such teaching and grading practices? You are paying for the name of faculty who are only interested in re-writing the whole damn textbook for you on the board in class time. Many classes have no class discussions. And there are still people arrogant enough to put down online colleges? At least in online colleges, you are not wasting money on the fuel and parking and commuting time.

In short, don't waste money here unless you get it for free, in which case, there might be a point for having such a name (and a mere hollow name) on your resume. Pointless pointless school for out of state undergraduates.

Oh wait..the campus? Many old buildings that look bad. Campus is in a poor state and not at all aesthetic. It is a very boring campus with extremes of social life (extreme drunken fraternity/sorority partying on the one hand, complete isolation with video games/movies on the other hand), and lots of cliques.

My advice for undergraduates is..try to two years of community college in Georgia first, be a Georgia resident and pay no tuition because you are covered by Hope...otherwise, stay in your own state/country, or do classes online..stop funding overrated colleges like Georgia Tech.

4th Year Female -- Class 2011

Surrounding City: B, Faculty Accessibility: D