Bradley University Top Questions

Small classes, which sounds nice, but makes it rather difficult to register for anything until you're a junior. High professor availability, the opportunity for academic competitiveness, and the concern shown by the staff are really the stand-out points of Bradley.

Two of the best things about Bradley are its class sizes and the student-professor relationship. Usually only the gen-eds (and just some) are found in one of the three lecture halls on campus. These are not the normal classroom settings found at Bradley. Most classes have around 30 students enrolled and the professors are very good about knowing names and having class involvement. Students usually do participate, some of the drier classes (beginning economics, operations management are a couple of examples) are a little more lecture oriented and less student participation. Overall, Bradley is known for its academic excellence. I think Bradley is ranked #6 nationally for academics - that may not be the correct ranking but it is definitely up there. People know about Bradley and it has a very high reputation. Most students - business college and nursing college especially - have jobs lined up before graduation.

I love my major and the professors in the com department.

Chemistry department has great teaching staff. Expect for lecture, all teachers know your name. GPA is important and competitive for main point of grad school and keeping scholarships. Challenging in engineering classes(Physics, Calculus...) Most classes are well balanced with grading scales to make difficulty less of a factor.

The CS classes I'm in have gotten really small just in the 2nd semester. My last two classes had like 10 people in them or less. The Gen-ed classes are usually huge, like my Psychology and Western Civ. lectures which had 3 or 4 teachers sharing a lecture hall, taking turns giving lectures. Every Friday was discussion day with your individual teacher. The teacher are all really nice, but this one in the CS department is slightly hard to understand. And he handed out floppy disks. In 2008. I'm sure it will all make sense one day.

I love the class sizes at Bradley. The biggest class I have taken had about 100 kids in it, and most of my classes are much smaller than that. Being a Nursing major, I have to study alot to keep my grades up, but it kind of depends on your major as to how much studying is required of you. The students in my classes care alot about their grades, so we are all really competitive and comparing GPA's and all that. I feel my education at Bradley will prepare me for a career in Nursing better than most other schools I could have attended.

I'm mostly in Constance, where the music classes are, and the music department faculty are wonderful! My experience so far at Bradley (just finished sophomore year) has taught me that the faculty want students to suceed and want to help them along the way. The music department does a sophomore review which is supposed to help gauge your progress and your plan for the rest of college. It was just another experience that showed me the professors do care how students are doing. I've also had wonderful professors outside of music classes. I haven't had a "bad professor" experience at all.

Classes are relatively small, some professors suck some are good, some classes are just plain unnecessary...

Academics... Well, last I heard Bradley ranks number 6 in top schools in the mid-west. This doesn't surprise me. I could ham it up, but i'm not going to lie. Bradley was HARD!!!!!!! Not just hard, REALLY hard. I busted my ass and barely managed C's. It's the complete and polar opposite of anything that my highschool was. Things are not handed to you on a silver platter. In highschool, your teachers have degrees in education, they know how to teach. In college, you're teachers have masters and doctorates in their fields of study, they have probably never taken an education course in their life. This holds true for many colleges and universities. The reality is, in college you will have to teach yourself. I learned this after first semester, unfortunately. I did have a few good professors, but I also had some of the worst. My Biology classes have been the largest with I would say a maximum of about 80 people. You will find that your general education classes are the largest because everyone is required to take them at some point. In my other classes though, my teachers do know my name, and that is partly because of class participation. As far as studying at Bradley, it's a wise choice. Although you may not always want to, when you are just sitting around watching TV or something, just keep in mind there is probably something that you could be studying for. Bradley is a very competitive school, a minimum GPA of a 2.0 is required by the University, and for specific departments such as nursing or business or engineering these usually have their own specific GPA requirments that tend to be above a 2.0. You may be thinking to yourself that a 2.0 is easy, not so much. My freshman year I took 17 credit hours and ended up with a 2.43. I graduated with a 3.5 from highschool and 26 on my ACT. A 2.43 for me was a shock. If I have any advice it's to never take more than 16 credit hours your freshman year and to take as many of your general education classes at a community college. Coming into school I thought I would be fine with 17 credit hours, but it was just too much. And what really brought my GPA down was general education courses that I did not do well in. If you take them at a community college they do not affect your GPA at Bradley, and they will generally cost you around a quarter of what you would pay at Bradley.

The classes are generally small except for some large gen ed. classes that everyone has to take. These classes usually top out at 100 tops.