The University of Texas - Austin

What I should have done before attending UT is talk with students who were about to graduate, to find out if they were going to a job where they needed their degree. A lot of Bio faculty use students to advance their reputation and get more $$. They treat students like disposable items.

Alumnus Male -- Class 2000

When I got admitted to UT, I was honestly psyched. It was only when reality set in and I saw the pathetic bureaucracy and incompetence I was up against that I realized what a terrible mistake I had made. It's not just that the university is incredibly impersonal-- It's the fact that you're paying tuition (albeit at a cheap, instate rate) to attend a university that honestly doesn't give a flying f*** about you. From day one, you are literally treated like a number. Your teachers won't know your name. Even if you go to office hours, they won't remember you. And mind you, most professors' office hours are a complete brown-nosing waste of time and effort. The truth is that most professors could care less about your performance in class-- The priorities at UT are football, graduate studies, overall image, and undergraduates, in that order. The classes are more or less designed to weed hapless undergraduates out of their majors, and going to lecture is in most cases a waste of time. You have to learn everything on your own, and the TAs are too overwhelmed or don't speak good enough English to help.

Of course, there are good, I daresay exceptional, professors at the University, but they are far and few between and the university doesn't really care all that much about keeping them. After all, UT is cutting back on academic funding while raising Mack Brown's salary and building scoreboards the size of Canada. Hell, the education board there was very close to raising the size of foreign language classrooms to 80 students from 25.

As for the students themselves, this was arguably the worst part of my experience at UT. The campus is thoroughly divided and racially segregated. Honors kids (Plan II, Liberal Arts Honors, etc.) tend to not hang out with the rest of the population, and members of Greek life (which obnoxiously dominates the campus social scene) tend to be rather cliquish and standoffish. Students are incredibly arrogant and competitive and always try to shove their GPAs in your face. Focus of the students and faculty is on gaming the system and getting the highest grade with the least effort, which in most cases means learning remarkably little. The intellectuality of students there is truly a joke-- On several occasions, my train of thought was interrupted by students next to me in the library bragging about how hammered they were the last week.

Austin itself is a cool and eclectic city; however, like others have said, the homeless people berating you does get annoying after a while. Really, if I were you, I would avoid going to any school in Texas. UT seems to only further the stereotype that Texans are a bunch of conservative, backwater idiots. I ended up transferring out after a year to a small liberal arts college, which I'm getting at basically the same price as what UT swindled me for. Sure, private colleges are expensive, but there are lots of grants and scholarships available. Don't let price deter you; there are better options.

1st Year Male -- Class 2013

Campus Maintenance: A, Education Quality: F