The University of Vermont

Teachers are usually very hard to track down, and don't offer much help. There are some groups/tutors in the learning co-op but these are usually scheduled for inconvenient times, and none of done right before major exams for the general first year classes like gen-chem. and gen-bio.

Burlington has much to offer and is a wonderful "city" but nobody at this school takes advantage of it. There are many events in Burlington to attend, and even on campus, but neither are well announced, and nobody really cares to go because they sometimes (not always) cost a little bit of money and all people spend money on here is booze and drugs.

Usually, during the days on weekends the campus becomes a ghost town, and on nights, everyone is located downtown and completely smashed. There will be many random groups on campus hanging out, but if you aren't already in the group, they will not do anything to make it seem like they want you to join in on whatever it is they are doing. The school has a very good way of hiding the fact that this is a party school and everybody here is a future alcoholic of America. Drinking and partying goes on at every school that I have visited of friends, but UVM takes it to an extreme, then pretends it's a ?dry campus? and is a ?public ivy?.

Even though its considered a ?public ivy?, it might as well be called poison ivy because I feel UVM is an infection. If you don't come to this school a hipster-plaid wearing-pot smoking-heavy drinker-arrogant-snob, you will become one. If you don't ski/snowboard, you will need to friend many people to hang out with during the day on weekends who do, because everyone else leaves. Some leave the whole day and night, so it can be empty.

Also, be prepared to have little deep intelleigent conversations with people, and have many shallow conversations about snowboarding/skiing, drugs, alcohol, and being under the influence doing stupid things. The student body lacks a lot of diversity in both mindset and racially. Sure, there are some students that are black/asian/latino/etc, but not many. The mindset of the students are all the same, rich Caucasians who mooch off there parents and like to party.

Some juniors and seniors are cool, but they have realized this school has changed for the worse and tend not to associate much with underclassman. Sure, they will let you into their party, but as for talking to you, they keep it to the minimum. The ones I have talked to have said the incoming class each year tends to be worse and worse. People develop some sort of ego here because they go to a ?great public school?, but in reality, its not even that good of a school.

Most freshmen will be forced to live in a triple or a TINY double in the freshman dorms. The freshman who luck out with nice dorms usually applied to a program, but sometimes its not better because a lot of these programs are suite-style living, which means little interaction with other people on your floor and building because you have your own territory. Almost all upperclassmen move off campus after sophomore year, and if you don?t, some people consider you strange. Everybody seems to be appalled when juniors mention they live on campus.

Overall, UVM is an okay school but why pay SO MUCH money for just an okay school, that has little to offer other than many drugs, a nice town, and beautiful mountains? There are many other schools that are better academically and socially out there, so don't just settle with UVM, make sure you research before you come here. I know many who like this school, but I also know many others who hate it and are transferring from here. Personally, I hate this school, but not everyone would agree so you really need to make sure you actually love this school and have good reasons for coming here.

The mindset of most of the students here is all about partying. People in my dorm get shit faced every night of the week. It's always loud and hard to get work done. I mean, weekends its fun to go out, but common... During the week, I need to study. This makes my life harder, because I have to walk all the way to the library whenever i want to get any work done (and the UVM campus is VERY spread out), so that's a long walk many times a day. It's also hard to fall asleep due to the constant screaming and loud noises of the partying kids in my dorm. The RAs do almost NOTHING to monitor the noise levels. The kids in my dorm are very irresponsible, and it impacts EVERYONe in the dorm. For instance, the parents of EVERY kid in my dorm were billed $100 on two occasions this semester due to damage done to the dorm building by a few individuals. How is that fair to my parents when I was no part of this damage? It just makes no sense to me... I am sick of the irresponsible nature of the kids I am living with. It's hard to find passionate kids who care about the work they do and will have a conversation that doesn't involve weed or alcohol. That being said, if you enjoy partying, the social life here is VERY good. However, it is hard to make deep connections with the people around you when the main social activities are just smoking and drinking.

Academics here are good. The classes I've taken were for the most part interesting and the professors were experienced in their fields. I have only taken one class that had a graduate student teaching it. However, most of the introductory courses here are very large. Be prepared to be in a class with over 50 or 100 other students. Getting into UVM is relatively easy, but it's getting harder. I am glad I came here because it has helped me become more independent. However, I am currently trying to transfer out because I do not like the culture here. I want to be in an environment where I can connect with others on deeper levels. Sure, partying is fun, but UVM students take it a little too far.