University of Arizona Top Questions

I dislike the heavy focus on sports and fraternities/sororities. I feel like a lot of the student population is mostly concerned about sports and drinking rather than about intellectual or artistic stimulation. My own department does not share these same attitudes towards college, and is mostly filled with individuals who care about learning. I don't feel like the administration is doing much here to direct it towards a more academic oriented direction, but rather leave this up to the department heads.

At the U of A it is said between the students that math and science classes are weed out classes to their upper level classes. Most professors and TA's like to give you the bare minimum you need to suceed and see what you can do rather than making sure you can suceed. If this is really true, I feel that the the school would have a lot more sucess from their students if they focus on trying to make them suceed not to test their deducing and self taught skills.

The large amount of drinking and related lack of focus on academic work is the worst thing. Not for all students but many do party very often and this can be seen in their attitudes in the classroom. While the university is large enough that these people do not make up a significant majority, they can still be disruptive at times.

The level of difficulty to get into math classes at the Unviersity by the Math placement test. Although one may score low on the ALEKS system, it may not reflect that person's true knowledge of math. However what makes this the worst feature also makes it one of the best, in the sense that the U of A has an elite math program.

The worst thing about the school I would say is that the most of the classes I have been in including my chemistry and biology classea have been very big so it is very hard to interact with professor or get help. There are preceptors avaiable but the help you get from the professor and teachers is different. Also, the science departments hire a lot of graduate students to teach big classes and since they don't have good experience, it makes the class more tough on students.

the worst thing is the class size, and difficulty getting into classes the you want/need during registration.

In my opinion the worst thing about my school, especailly because I live on campus, is the campus food choices. I feel like they place those unhealthy restaurants in easily accessible places than the few that are healthy. For example the healthy choices, "Cellar Bistro", "Cactus Grill" are located downstairs (1st floor) and upstairs (3rd floor) of the student union which many people do not know even exists. In contrast, Burger King, Panda Express, Chick-fila, etc are on the main floor (2nd floor) which catches the eye of many throughout the day.

I strongly dislike the off campus housing situation. There is not a tight community of off-campus housing, people live relatively spread out from one another.

I believe that the school is not very good at spreading the news about possible social activities on campus, unless they are associated with major sports programs. If a movie, for example, is playing at the campus movie theatre, the school rarely does anything to alert or notify its students about it. The only way I find out about the movie is if I walk by the campus movie theatre and read about it on a flyer. However, most students do not even notice that the flyer even exists.

If I could choose any worst thing about my school it would be the lack of encouraging students to beome involved in the social life. However, there are countless ways and opportunities to interact with different organizations and clubs but I feel that the school should further emphasize and somewhat force students to make new friends. It would have been beneficial for me because I am shy and hesitant when wanting to join a club or participate in a interactive social event.