University Buffalo
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ACADEMICS IN GENERAL: There are two "levels" of college here: expensive high school for the majority of students here to party and coast through school, and college for the few that go beyond the Powerpoint slides and develops their studies on their own. UB caters towards the former group: easy to pass classes where the professors will just read you a Powerpoint slide, curve the exams once anyone starts complaining about their failing grades, and lack of discussion. You do not experience anything substantial in your degree. As for access to professors, they will have a decent number of office hours, but for 200+ students, this is too small--you get 10 minutes with the professor because there is a line. It becomes worse if you need recommendations for grad school because the professor doesn't know you. For example, I had one rare and great, assignment, but my group had to present to the TA, not the professor. I couldn't get that professor's recommendation about it because he wasn't there!
CAREER CENTERS AND JOBS--The school only attracts local jobs and due to the weak economy in Buffalo, these jobs are for Geico, Aldi, Target, etc as customer assistants and store managers. NYC or outside companies rarely show up. Now, for accounting students the CRC does get a lot of accounting firms, but that is the exception. The career advisers tend to only know local resources and did not have many connections. The "meet a mentor" program doesn't get updated much and has a large lack of connections outside the local area. It is also near impossible to get an internship since companies do not advertise here--I had to search outside the school's resources, then had to pay to get credit for the school's program. In a major that connections are everything, there wasn't many chances to network here.
ENVIRONMENT--The North Campus gets better treatment than South Campus. You need a car here to get to anything. The students leave garbage everywhere, then complain when the janitors want hirer salaries. The vast majority of bathrooms here are trashed with students leaving towels clogging sinks and toilets, bodily fluids left on toilets, etc. Of course it is all cleaned up for tours and open house. I have to say though, the school has begun to renovate areas bit by bit.
ADMINISTRATION--Does not listen to students or communicate policy changes. For example, they will suddenly make changes to academic majors without students knowing in advance. http://spectrum.buffalo.edu/article.php?id=29774
http://spectrum.buffalo.edu/article.php?id=31653
(Thought the School of Management did reinstate those students taking the minor already after complaints.) Without notice, the administration took away the second last meeting room for commuter students to add office space. The administration also wastes money on useless projects, and then wants to raise tuition. The buses had rolling paper signs replaced with a few thousand dollar electronic signs to say "Red Line," "Have a nice day." Another example was spending money on pillars around campus or having a stock market ticker board installed. There's corruption too in the student associations which goes unpunished: http://spectrum.buffalo.edu/article.php?id=30030
There have been numerous examples and sometimes the student officials resign, but not punished.
STUDENT LIFE--A bright spot: the students here are amazingly friendly and welcoming. The student body as a whole though is apathetic about issues. Like I mentioned earlier, most want to coast through school though. Do not buy into the school's diversity learning hype though--while there is a diversity of students here and people are friendly towards each other, no one really is willing to get out of their comfort zone and learn from other diverse groups. Everyone sticks to their groups. You have a range of students here so I cannot generalize, but just say it includes the party all night groups, studious groups, extraverted and introverted, international students, all economic classes, etc.
STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES--I'm not qualified to make a judgment, just thought to provide some information. The school has an office for disabilities, sets up tutors and aides, and has a special bus bring students to locations during the winter because of the snow and ice. I do not know the quality of these programs though. Also, the school wasn't built with accessibility in mind and just has modifications made to it. There are elevators for the physically disabled in certain areas that you must travel to while other students can just walk up the steps right there. Example: my dorm had one elevator for the entire complex with 3 floors and 4 connected buildings. I noticed a student in a wheelchair had to go from the basement cafeteria through the hallways to the one building with the elevator and then upon reaching his floor, would have to travel through the hallways back to the building he started in. I could just walk up the steps. PLEASE VIEW THE SCHOOL FOR YOURSELF AND ASK ABOUT THESE THINGS.
DORMS--overcrowded, increasing restrictions placed on students to prevent lawsuits, and as for the types of students you'd get as hall mates, that is up to luck. I had two years of noisy annoyance and one year of amazing people. They are also overpriced. Get ready for the fire alarms.
Parking- the university needs more campus parking. It can take almost 30-60 mins to get a parking spot many days, I remember.
Campus facilties: lots of computer stations to check email and submit reports, which was somewhat helpful. The libraries need a lot of work, but Lockwood library is for beast mode studying.
Dorm Life- I stayed in the dorms one semester and I hated it. The students were unprofessional, undisciplined, and rather listless. Rent an apartment in Amherst and commute. Your study skills will soar and you'll learn independence and time budgeting, useful skills in life and careers.
Faculty- As I said, I was a chemistry major upon graduation, but my first two years I was a declared Physics major. The physics faculty were kind, helpful, approachable, and quite gregarious in helping me get through my 200 and 300 level courses. In chemistry, many of the faculty teaching were cold, condescending, unfriendly, and at times, obtuse. The TAs were understanding and helpful. But, the faculty in chemistry is like a whole new ball club, and I bet there's reasons beyond retirement or other official cover stories!
And with that last comment, I have to state that in my senior year, I learned much more teaching myself the skills used in both the lab and in industrial research, allowing me to gain that internship, and then land job after job in the chemical field. So, go against the currents of UB and teach yourself. With self-taught hard work and mental discipline, you can achieve more than others with major socio-economical advantages and their graduate degrees!
Another negative was the school seeming obsession with telling students in order to succeed, you must go to grad school. I would expect this school's faculty to at least have some idea how to help their future graduates achieve some sort of job after college, instead of just saying "Just go to grad school!" over and over.
My advice: UB is a good school for low cost of attendance and ability to transfer courses to other schools. Many of my classmates took maybe one or two years at most of 1st and 2nd year courses in their major then transferred to a better school with the credits from UB. I was stuck at UB because I did not want to keeping working low-paying full time careers to pay tuition another 3-4 years due to higher charges at better school.
There are positives. The walkways around the North campus are absolutely beautiful during the summer and Fall, with the leaves changing alongside Hamilton and Audubon roads. The North Campus lake is gorgeous year round, and the faculty I had outside chemistry and in the gen. ed classes were nice, intelligent, and very helpful. UB has alot of positives, and with the new chemistry faculty, I can recommend the school to a future chemical student.
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