SUNY Buffalo State Top Questions

Great. There's variety of majors

The academics at Buffalo State SUNY involve every student to be above a 2.0 or better and they also encourage students to get involved with other activities such as sports, fraternity's or things like the ROTC program.

Seeing as how I've only been to one college to actually learn in my life, I can't really say that the academics are great or not. At this point in my life, all I can say is that I'm doing what I have to do to graduate and stay ahead. In terms of course work, the work here isn't too hard. Like anything you do, it's fun if its easy. It's easy if you are good at it. You're good at it if you study. That's all there is to it.

With an Undergraduate population of 18,000+, it can be a little tricky to gain a personal relationship with your professors. In Freshman lectures, when you are with 300+ students, it can be hard. But once you declare a major, and start taking upper level classes, the class sizes become smaller and you can start to develop personal relationships with your professors and classmates. The education at UB is geared toward learning for its own safe. UB is a research University, with a teaching staff that has mostly been in Academia for their entire career. While this gives students an opportunity to learn from the best, it is not focused on careers, but getting their students into the best grad school program.

All students are required to fuflfill "general education requirements" like English, Math, World Civ, etc, and these take up most of your schedule your first year or so, depending on your major. Average class size is 30, but intro-level classes (especially in the sciences and social sciences) are often in lectures of 100+ students. The rigor of one's academics depends largely on one's major; nursing, exercise, and engineering are very competitive, whereas communications and psychology are a much lighter load. Because it's such a big school, there are tons of classes and really interesting electives; for example, "Sex and Communication" and "Film and the Senses." Also, one-credit athletic electives are offered- everything from badminton to yoga to triathalon training.

There are a lot of foreign teachers here and that is a constant barrier for students. Other than that I've had teachers that were very distant (understandable if you have a class of 200+ students) and some that were very warm and inviting. All professors (except maybe some math ones) incourage questions and welcome students to office hours.

Like many schools, UB has large class sizes and small. The larger tend to be in freshmen classes, and they get smaller as classes get harder. I am a political science major and have had varying sized classes. The great thing about our professors is that they are always willing to help. While the classes are large, if you introduce yourself to the professor, they will remember you. Many of the conversations in the classes are incredibly interesting, discussing recent topics and tying them into past events. Aside from the departments requirements, the school requires general education classes which allows the students to experience a variety of subjects. Also, aside from the department's adviser, the school offers a career counseling center. This allows the students to focus their education towards their future career goals.

UB is a large school with large amount of people attending. Professors will know your name if you visit their office hours and ask them questions frequently. I loved my BIO200, CHE201(organic chemistry) and one of my elective class, MFC358. The primary reason I liked these classes are the professors. They taught very well and UB has a great number of great professors. The school's academic requirement either to get into the major or to graduate is reasonable. I see some majors require a high Grade Point Average(GPA), but that is also reasonable because the materials for the major require a great work and responsibility. This will push individual to get a job with practical training and learning.

very competitive. i dont spend tiem with professors out of class, its easier to find tas but soemtimes tehy don't knwo teh answers. The education is very science based at least in teh exercise science adn nutrition field rather than the real world experience. The professors seem very knowledgable though and make hard tests

Most professors know my name, but in classes that take place in large lecture halls it's hard for the teacher to get to know you. Office hours are the best place for you to get an edge on the other students and get some reliable help studying. My favorite class was Micro Economics because I had a teacher who made everything seem very simple yet still interesting. I feel like I learned a lot about how to make the best decision in a given situation. My least favorite class has been African American Studies because my teacher is so unorganized and unfair to the students in terms of grading and the questions on the tests. We had group work and each group had to give a presentation on a different topic. On the test, one of the group's questions was on there. Obviously everyone in that group knew how to answer it. The test was 2 questions and that question was worth 60{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} of the test. Class participation is common for whoever wants to participate. In smaller classes, there is more one on one conversation with the teacher. Students don't seem all that competitive here. Not as much as I've heard some other schools where everyone's trying to be better than everyone else.