Drake University Top Questions

Do professors know your name? Most professors make a concentrated effort on learning all their students' names within the first week or two of the semester. The only exception is some of the larger lecture classes. Tell us about your favorite class. Psychology 001. My professor was incredibly interesting and made learning the material easy because it was so translatable to real life. Least favorite? I have had a few bad classes...my First Year Seminar was one of the worst, however. As first year students, we were expected to do upperclass work with very little feedback. How often do students study? Completely depends on the student...some study every day, some do not study until Finals roll around. Is class participation common? Class participation is required in the majority of classes and it is usually worth between 10-25{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} of your semester grade. Do Drake students have intellectual conversations outside of class? Depends on the students. Are students competitive? Yes, but not necessarily with academics...arguing over who's pro football team is much more common than competing over grades. What's the most unique class you've taken? Religion 052...a study of the New Testament. Do you spend time with professors outside of class? Only when it is required of me. Otherwise, if I need to contact my professor, it is usually through email or directly after class. Is the education at Drake geared toward getting a job, or learning for its own sake? I'm not sure...I guess I'll find out in a couple years.

Drake is very respected for its academic reputation. In my experiences, almost all of my professors have been experts in their fields, and usually hold doctorate degrees. Classroom culture can get very competitive as Drake notoriously accepts students who are the "cream of the crop". Class sizes are generally very small- about 30-40 students. Some intro classes like Astronomy and Biology can get quite large by Drake's standards with 100-200 students. Most of my professors have made the effort to get to know the names of every student in their class which is nice to see. Professors encourage relationship building with their students and look highly upon those who pay visits to their office hours.

Top notch. All of the different schools (journalism, business, pharmacy, etc). have their bragging points, but in general great professors, wide variety of classes and challenging in a good way. In response to the tranfer student, I don't know of any professor that would make those comments, let alone have a desire to deal with a student as apathetic and negative as yourself...

Some profs I don't know know my name. Which is totally freaky sometimes. But could be cool since, clearly, profs talk amongst each other about us (students) = more exposure to more contacts! :) A killer class for a finance major: Anything with Prof. Inchul Suh, especially the senior finance seminar. The most entertaining class ever: Adolescent Lit with Prof. Beth Younger. Everyone must take it. Students: some are competitive, but many try to fly under the radar and do min work possible just to pass. Also, Drake should make everyone take writing classes in Howard Hall.

Drake's academics are no better than my public high school (in some cases I attended about 5 classes in an entire semester, doing almost no studying, and still earned an A). The professors are third rate (terrible teachers, who are not respected within their fields). The course offerings are poor (their math department doesn't even offer analysis and algebra every semester, two standard courses for any respectable math degree). The honors program is anything but (it is an alternative gen ed program in which you take seminar style classes instead of lecture style classes. Unfortunately, for seminar style courses to be worth anything the students need to be top quality, which is non existent at Drake). The pharmacy students at Drake tend to think highly of themselves, despite the fact that Drake's pharmacy program is ranked in the bottom twentieth percentile (46/57), and they struggle with intro level courses (bio/chem). If you have any thoughts of graduate studies DO NOT attend Drake (when I talked to my professors about it, they told me that Drake was in no way preparing me to enter graduate school).

academics at drake are focused on making you competitive for jobs after graduation. in the business school my teachers are always giving us real world tips. one teacher hands out articles to the lass on professionalism regularly throughout the semester. topics have included the handshake and writing thank you letters. i love taking classes from adjunct professors who have been in the business world and bring that experience to the classroom. I had an accounting teachers that had put in 30 years with KPMG prior to coming to drake. he was able to tell us how the class was preparing us for life after college.