University of Maryland-College Park Top Questions

The most frustrating aspect of UMD was the size of the student body and the implications it had when I initially got to school. Because it's such a large school it's typically you're in very large lecture halls with hundreds of other students. This can cause students to struggle with understamding the material because it's easy to not pay attention and many are nervous to speak up in large lecture halls. Also because the classes are so large proffessors rarely know students individially. However there are many ways to succesfully learn in this situation.

The strong emphasis on athletics, and lack of readily available information on counseling services.

The most frustrating thing about the Univeristy of Maryland-College Park, would be being a part of the Freshman Connection Program. In Freshman Connection, all of your classes begin after 3:00 pm and you can only take classes that the program provides. Although it may seem convenient, not having morning classes, I have actually found it to be a burden. My classes usually run until 9:00 pm and then I have to return and do homework until the early morning hours. This has messed up my sleeping schedule and you need sleep as a college student.

The most frustrating thing about being at this school could vary depending on the type of student you are. Though for me the most frustrating thing is how rigorous the classes are. At UMD classes are alot harder than they are at most schools and UMD doesn't really have much to help out students.

I am taking online classes and the platform used to support these class underwent a lot of growing pains in the earlier years. There were a lot of issues with incompatibility between the online technology and some student's computer software. There were also a great deal of outages and system glitches. Throughout the years the technology used for the online platform improved tremendously. However there are still instances when the platform is unavailable due to maintenance. This is inconvenient and at times frustrating because there is not access to the classroom.

The professors seem to have very little time for question and answer sessions with the students. Questions in the class room were answered in a short, cryptic manor and questions through Blackboard or email were rarely answered at all.

I have not had any professors who post grades online, so it can be very difficult to track your success through the semester and thus difficult to budget time and study periods accordingly.

I don't really get frustrated with much about the school, though the teachers are sometimes hard to understand considering some just don't speak english well. It takes a few weeks to grasp a firm understanding of their accent and by then you are already a bit behind. (remember this isn't a major problem just a small bit that can be a nuisance.)

The workload in regards to the amount of credits a course has. Oftentimes, I would spend much more time working on an assignment for a 1 or 2 credit course than some of the assignments from a 3 or 4 credit course.

The most frustrating thing about UMD is the lack of a strong community within certain majors/courses.

How to deal with a large class size. I had never attended a class with more than thirty students, so to show up in a 300 person lecture hall is intimidating. It took a while to understand how professors and TA's took on these massive classes and how to study for them.

Some areas on campus are pretty dark withouth much lights at night so it scares me a little, not so frustrating though.

How large it is. I am sill learning where everything is but it is new and exciting.

The most frustrating thing about UMD are the professors. They are very slow in grading papers and getting back to students.

The most frustrating thing about my school is how competitive it is. I know it helps me to work harder, but with the amount of students there is and how intelligent everyone is, it is hard to not seem like you are not smart enough. It makes it harder to get into certain majors and programs. The benefit of the competition is it makes students work harder for what they want.

One thing that is very frustrating about Maryland is that all of the academic buildings are far apart and there is only one bus that runs during the day, which makes it difficult for students to get to some classes. In addition, there is no way of scheduling midterms, so professors end up scheduling midterms during the same week, which is very stressful for students.

It can be extremely difficult to achieve an A as a final grade in a class.

The Department of Transportation on Campus and the lack of available FREE parking on campus.

The workload for classes are a little extreme and some tests/exams are impossible. I don't believe a student gets much from a class when the class average is a 50{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} but with a curve to allow students to pass.

The town around the main campus isn't quite as lively as it could be.