The University of Texas - Arlington

It takes about 2 month to get an appointment with them, and by the time your finished all the classes you need will be filled up. It's like a rat race before you've even entered the CLASS! Parking is an absolute nightmare, don't drive anything but a beater up here, otherwise anything of value will be door dinged and rear ended to oblivion.

Most classes are taught by angst ridden and angry adjunct professors. They do this to cut costs, however the quality of education goes down with the costs. This isn't to say all adjuncts are bad, but most of them are either part timers with other jobs just trying to pay their bills or actual failures in terms of academic employment. Many of these people do not speak English properly, which sometimes is okay because most professors here just use instructor edition power points that come with the book and computer generated tests from test banks.

UTA also a few professors out there I like to call "weed eaters". They feel it's their duty to make their general education or survey class so work/reading intensive that less than 20% pass. Ironically these same professors make their top level classes super easy, it doesn't make sense. Nobody should have to read 150 pages a week out of 3 different books for History 1311. If you don't have a lot of friends, or constantly check ratemyprofessor you'll be suffering through quite a few of these. You can easily tell if a professor is like this, just check to see which classes are still open right before the term starts, those are the "weed eaters". The classes the fill up right away are the good ones. I guess this might be common among American Universities, but UTA seems to have the biggest number of "weed eaters" I've seen.

The campus is filled with students that make you wonder how the heck they got in. Half of them seem like they struggled to pass high school, the other half seem like they've literally given up on life. Then you have the older students, 28 years and up. These bitter folk have obviously returned (tail between their legs) because they found limited employment opportunities for people without BAs. I genuinely feel sorry for these guys, they have to sit there with all of these DFW tumbleweeds just to half a marginal shot at a decent corporate job. That aside, they are normally very angry and rude because of their bitter existence.

So with all these negatives and so few positives you'd think I jump at the first chance to get out. Unfortunately I made the mistake of talking to a counselor at UTA who talked me out of going to UNT. Which by no means is a great school, but at least it somewhat resembles a college. I'm now a senior and I've finally made the transition elsewhere. I'm having to repeat 5-7 classes that won't transfer at a cost of nearly $10,000 but it was worth EVERY PENNY SO FAR.

UTA is a depressing place with a terrible graduation rate. Most people there seem to take 8 years+ to finish, if they ever get around to it. The atmosphere is aggressive and reminds me of an unemployment line. The staff can be brutally rude and doesn't really give a rat's bum about you, and they make it very clear. If you don't have a significant base of friends from high school you certainly won't make many friends here.

UTA also caters to students who receive "free" tuition via Pell grants. UTA does this because it pays their bills. These grants are easily abused by people who live with only one parent (non-breadwinner) but are still receiving support from the other. The only requirement is that the caregiver be making <$60,000 a year. That is 90% of Americans if counted individually. Why is this important? Well UTA gets paid by uncle sam and these people get to go for nearly nothing. Which creates a huge entitlement vibe. The downside is people like me have pickup the tab. UTA is much cheaper than the alternatives, but it's way overpriced for what it is. About $2500 a term is the max you should have to pay for this nonsense.

If all of this wasn't deterrent enough, the crime in and around UTA is horrendous. My student email is constantly filled with these "police bullets" and "backjacking" (stealing your backpack while you're walking to your car) is commonplace. I tried to alter my perception about this place, but it just can't be done. I wish I would've trusted my gut and gone elsewhere.

Yet another major problem with UTA is the parking. Even without the huge amounts of construction you better come a hour before you class starts (AM courses). Otherwise you'll be walking about 30 minutes (through ghettos mind you) from your car to your building. Though this is what happens when you have 20,000 people commuting all at different times. The moral of the story is: don't go here unless you live in the area and you're 30 years old+ and already employed. Otherwise you'll just wind up depressed and feeling left out of the "college life".

Save yourself the time and effort. UTA was basically a community college as nobody gives a crap about "being a Maverick". The school even acknowledges that it sucks by offering students a chance to go to UT if they want to through the "cap system" which is a nice way of saying "stepping stone into a better college". Nobody I met was proud of being there or happy. Don't join the overwhelming majority that are just trying to find their way into a better school.