Foo - University recommendations?

Well, after believing all the hype about UTSA, a month into the semester I am miserable. This place shuts down after classes are over. There are no student activities, just organizations that want free labor. We are removed from the rest of San Antonio, and because this place is a tourist town, stuff ain't cheap.

I found out that this place is a "commuter school" with mainly adult students. As in, not a college for much fun. I have no car, and even no bike right now! :(

I am going to transfer. Out-of-state options are open. If anyone knows of an awesome school with activites readily available and has a good academic standing, please feel free to plug it!

emilib

University of Montana, Missoula, MT http://www.umt.edu/
Montana State University, Bozeman, MT http://www.montana.edu/

Both are very reputable schools. Also bike friendly communities.

It may also depend on what your Major is? ?

UNT might. it has like 30,000 young students and the sat scores are the same as SMU.
i think tuition is like $2000 a year.

Appalachain State is pretty good but they aren't too cool to cyclists. But there are about twice as many this year as last year. Also if you live in town you don't need a car because everything is within biking distance. It is located in Boone NC and Lance Armstrong said it is the best place to train in the country. There are lots of outdoor things to do and not much city type stuff. Lots of hippys which are all really cool (i didn't think I'd like them at first) but there are a few bible-thumpers as well. There isn't much greek life but there are definately enough parties if you want to get up get up and get down. A lot of people smoke pot up here as well if you are into that. It is definately a cool school and I couldn't see myself anywhere else. You can be as active or unactive in campus stuff. And there are ski mountains right here, you can even get your PE credit with the ski/snowboard class. Just my $.02 Good luck searching for a new school.

Well, after believing all the hype about UTSA, a month into the semester I am miserable. This place shuts down after classes are over. There are no student activities, just organizations that want free labor. We are removed from the rest of San Antonio, and because this place is a tourist town, stuff ain't cheap.

I found out that this place is a "commuter school" with mainly adult students. As in, not a college for much fun. I have no car, and even no bike right now! :(

I am going to transfer. Out-of-state options are open. If anyone knows of an awesome school with activites readily available and has a good academic standing, please feel free to plug it!

emilib

I see you live in Tyler. I used to be able to recommend Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches when I taught there years ago. Now I don't keep up with it much. It used to be a great teacher training school. You might check it out, anyway.

There are definitely lots of kids at SFA. Now-a-days when I go up to the campus, I am one of the old fogies.

man... SFAU ... man... if the football feild bathrooms are important to you do not go to this school. god they were nasty. every year we would go to march there and every year it the toilet areas were cruddy and flooded as hell. i heard one bathroom there even had pee just caked up on the floor....

sorry, but man, that can't be let go! :eek:

Man, U of I, Urbana. That school is out in the cornfields of Illinois, but it was a good scene for parties, bars, etc. We liked to call it Screw of I because you'd sign up for classes and think you were ok, only to find out you got cut from the class you needed and had to wait a semester. It would be hysterical! Then we'd go to the professor with our sad stories and get them added anyways. Even if they didn't add it, the school was always so much fun- they totally have tons of extracurricular activities, and the whole campus is set up so that you can find the entertainment no matter what. And if it wasn't your scene... ROAD TRIP! Illinois State University was just a 45 minute drive, or you could take the train or a long distance bus and still be there in no time, and sometimes, they could party up real good over there, so make sure you get some friends up at Illinois State so that if for some reason it was dead at U of I, you could head up to ISU in Normal.

Well, the school is quite excellent too- they're always being innovative. I remember the year after I graduated, they were already wiring up the dorms so everyone would have internet, and they made it so that every student could get a laptop. This was in 1993... and the internet pretty much started taking off in 1992, and they were very good at getting as many students as possible into computers and everything. They had one of the few supercomputers around, and they were pretty involved with doing computer related stuff with the government.

They also have one of the largest libraries of any university- I worked at the library and sometimes, we'd do morning rounds, and it would take hours to get through all the libraries in the maze.... They have very good fields for studying, so whatever your major, I'm sure you wouldn't have any problems keeping it. The school is HUGE!!!! They try to provide for everyone, so you just won't want for any classes or anything. For instance, with languages, they had every language I could imagine, from classic Greek and modern Greek, to Sanskrit, Swahili, Gaelic, classic and modern Hebrew, Coptic, and Latin. I'm not kidding- they provided for just about every language on the planet, not just the usual 5 or 6 languages offered at other schools. They had one HUGE gym, and then they expanded it big time, and they added other gyms around the campus. The riding was pretty good- I knew a guy who was in a long distance cycling club that rode up to Chicago every weekend. And the Student Union was an awesome place to hang- all you need is your student ID and you can head out to the recreation center in it and play pool or just hang in the basement. Or just form your own club, then apply to the Student Council for funding... so you can totally start your own club, get funding to advertise and have events and stuff, and promote activities. We totally have our sporting teams too, so on a day when the football or basketball teams were playing, it was one big party.

I still stress the academics were great- but the student services and the student support groups and the activities provided for students so they can party up and cut loose from the stress.

I also did a study abroad, and it was a piece of cake. All those idiots wanted to go to England and Ireland, but guess what? No one wanted to go to Australia! So I picked Australia, went through the interviews, filled out the forms, and within a week, I got picked to go! All the other people competing to go to England didn't hear for months afterwards, and of course, lots of people got turned away. I mean, they can only send as many students that were coming from England. We still had spots open for going to Australia! My friend went to England, and she travelled around Europe, but I got to travel around Australia and Asia, which is CHEAPER and kinder on the dollar, so I was happy.

There is a place for everyone at U of I. You could be a stoner, a frat boy, a geek, a GDI (god-damned independent), a loner, etc., and you will find a nitche. I LOVED going to the 24 hour cafe and hanging out there all night, seeing everyone in the night crowd and hanging there for the night, then dragging my tired self home for a few hours sleep before I dragged what was left of my carcass to my 8am class. Oh God, I remember taking Econ 101 and falling asleep EVERY TIME I got to lecture. The guy was soooooo boring! I quit going to the cafe at night and got 12 hours of sleep the night before Econ, but as soon as I got to class, I'd still be falling asleep. Then I dropped the class. The dude was just one walking talking sleep inducer! And man oh man! If you gotta take your electives, there are TOTALLY blow off classes you can take that give you that easy A. So you can totally prop your GPA with the fluff classes. You can take just about anything from Japanese Tea Ceremonies and Japanese Floral Arrangements to Entomology 105 (insects, but it's like a fill in the blank test 2 times a year, but very interesting class if you get May Berembraum!) and Billiards.

Totally U of I. Apply now and call, call, call until you find someone that will be your friend who can help push your application through. If Professer Sweeny is there, he was good like that- he had considerable influence and he was very sympathetic to personal situations. If you could appeal to him and get him into your cause, he would 100% fight for you (as I found when I got kicked out of U of I and readmitted immediately once I spoke to Sweeney, who happened to be on the board for admitting). He was the main Biology 110 professor for the sophomores and juniors if you need to look him up.

Man oh man... those was the best 6 years of my life! Good old Screw of I! :D

Koffee

man... SFAU ... man... if the football feild bathrooms are important to you do not go to this school. god they were nasty. every year we would go to march there and every year it the toilet areas were cruddy and flooded as hell. i heard one bathroom there even had pee just caked up on the floor....

sorry, but man, that can't be let go! :eek:

Wouldn't know about football field bathrooms....any bathrooms I went into at SFA were quite clean. All I do know is that the elementary and secondary courses there are good ones, the professors I had when I was a student were good ones, the ones I knew when I worked there were conscientious and hard-working.

I have never understood SFA's reputation for being a "party school", but that could be because I didn't run with the party crowd. Of course, I was only 16 when I started at SFA, so I wasn't even "legal"!

EmiliB, if you care about football field bathrooms, you had better heed Merton's warning! :D

Vicki

what were SFAU's dorms like? (nice a quiet?)

what were SFAU's dorms like? (nice a quiet?)

I wouldn't know....I live in Nacogdoches, so I didn't need a dorm.

Just go out and visit some different places, and see what feels best. It might be more useful to ask what places to avoid, since everybody's going to pump up their own Podunk State U. Academically most U's are pretty similar at the undergraduate level - work hard and you'll do fine. Some have greater access to industry, due to location, which helps in getting a job. The social/civic climate is what really varies a lot - it would suck to live in a town you found ugly/boring/crass/etc, so pay attention to that.

Wow!

Thanks everybody for all the great info!
Yes, I have looked at SFA and UNT, but didn't find what I am looking for. I think that I just need to transfer out-of-state. It sucks because out-of-state is crazily expensive, but I may have to do it for my sanity.

I am looking into U of I, Koffee, it sounds as though you really liked it there!

Now, if I could just get my boyfriend to tag along!

emilib

emilieB,

UT Austin is a great place to go and Austin in a lot of fun and a good town for bikes. I went to SFA and loved it there but there still isn't much to do there. Many of the students went back to Dallas or Houston on the weekends, but it is a beautiful town and fairly friendly toward bikes.

Also, Ms Vicki, get it touch with me and let me know when you were at SFA and what you taught.

Dan

What do you mean UTSA has mainly older students?? I went there for 2 years and there are all kinds of activities and almost all young students...but anyhow, if you are looking for other options you might want to look into Texas Tech. Great school, nice large campus that isn't crammed down to the inch (like UT or A&M), and plenty of things to do...good student environment.

Finding a college that "fits" is like finding a girlfiend or a wife. Can't do it from a book or a website.

Think about what sort of college "fits" your personality. Read up on a bunch of schools. But, visit the ones that look most interesting. Try to spend a couple of days on campus. Sit in on some classes in your area of interest.

I attended three colleges before I found what I was looking for. It turned out that the "perfect" college for me was a small college in a small town. I think small colleges are the BEST sort of college for any freshman or sophomore who is serious about education, as opposed to just getting a piece of paper to hang on the wall. But, there are people who loved their undergraduate experiences at 50,000 student mega-size schools.

And, things such as climate are worth thinking about. My college got so much snow that we would get trapped indoors for days at a time. In my youth, I could handle that. Now, I'm addicted to sunshine and tropical weather.

And, getting the most out of any school requires effort. There are good things going on at just about every college in America. At some schools, finding those things may take some effort - life is like that.

Rutgers, New Bruswick (New Jersey).

University of Oregon
Eugene, Oregon
60 miles east of Oregon coast
Large school
Eugene pop. +/- 140,000
Home of Burley bicycles
www.uoregon.edu

Dude go check out Texas State up in San Marcos. My ex went there and it was an AWESOME school and Austin is only 20mins away, always something happening here.

UT Austin

University of Florida. Not only a party school, it has great Acedemics...

University of Florida. Not only a party school, it has great Acedemics ;)...

fixed :D

Have you looked at Texas State Univerity/San Marcos? I still prefer to call it SWT.

what about texas tech?

the univeristy of alabama at tuscaloosa, we aint all redneck...

lots of open roads to bike on and the redneck just do not care that we are out there, the school is building new dorms (to go with the older ones) they have a brand new chemistry build and have plans for a new freshman science building (bio, chem, phys, ect. will have all lecture and labs in this one building, though this is a few years down the road) and the best part is the town worships the school, and there is always something going on here...

Anyone else live on a suitcase campus and actually like it?

whassa suitcase campus?