University of Oklahoma-Norman Campus Top Questions

The Engineering department is great. The courses were rigorous and I was always challenged on my path to excellence. Every year the College of Engineering has Engineering Week were we have activities throughout the week, ending with a Fluid Dynamics Lab at one of the local bars. It's great time to have a beer with your fellow students and professors. The career services at OU is great. I got my job by having my resume posted on the schools website!

The general freshman classes tend to be rather large, but by the time you get situated in your major, the numbers drop significantly (20-30 ppl in a class). Some professors are difficult to understand, but generally they are extremely intelligent and love their fields.

Classes range in size from 20 to 200. I like them both for different reasons. In the smaller classes you know the other students, the teacher and you get more of a chance to interact with the teacher. For me this is beneficial because I'm a hands-on learner. I do like the large classes though, too! It's nice to not have to participate, simply go to class, get the lecture notes and be done. This isn't to say that getting to know teachers of big classes is impossible. Quite the opposite. In big classes you just have to go to office hours and the teachers are 95{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} of the time more than happy to see you, get to know you and help you.

Although I have experienced large classes, once I got into my more major specific classes it became much smaller and more intimate. Although I do not know exact statistics I can say that OU excels in many academic areas and I believe has the most national merit scholars at any public university

I think that students study a lot more than professors give them credit for. The academics here are wonderful, and I consistently feel challenged. I compete with myself and classmates, and usually come out doing well in my classes. I think most people here want an education, and OU offers a good one. If people aren't here to learn and discuss with other like-minded individuals, then they don't need to be here in the first place. Fortunately, I believe that many of the students here are very education-oriented people, and generally work to get the job done.

the only professors that knew my name were from classes of fewer than 30 students. of the 150 or so credit hours i earned, only two of the classes were that small. there are classes in which participation is common, but it is usually the same 4 or 5 people who participate all of the time. i really liked most of the professors in the psychology department, but there were some problems. davetta (the advisor for the department for my first two years) was not a suitable sole occupant of her position. she was nice, but she was not very helpful. with as many classes as i took, i could have graduated a semester earlier and had a much easier load. i know this now only after doing what i did. the education at OU, in my opinion, is solely geared at learning for it's own sake. it was rare in my education at OU that i learned a practical application of the knowledge i acquired. and i mean practical in the sense of getting a job.

Pretty academics oriented but sports is still more important to the university in my opinion..

OU academic advisers need better major-specific information. For Chemical Engineering I had very specific courses to be taken each semester in my major and my advisers were unable to alert me of this. They should have had access to major-specific requirement and scheduling information so that I would have had the option to leave 2 semesters earlier than I will now.

The academics are strong and felt like they were always improving. Some of my favorite classes were in the philosophy department, but that is probably because they were a nice break from a lot of science. Large class sizes are a problem, especially in the science department. This didn't seem like such a problem in other departments. The problem of large classes in the early years of college is predominantly avoided by adding discussion sections for the student to attend that are taught by the TA's. This is helpful because it reinforces the material a second time, but might not be necessary if the classes could be made smaller. I didn't see many of my professors outside of class, nor did I spend much time talking to them. Most of them made themselves available to students to come and see them, I just chose not to do so. I majored in biochemistry. The department was strong, but I felt like more credit hours to graduate may have been helpful. I managed to finish a semester early and was sort of stuck in limbo before graduation. Nobody else that I know had this problem, so it is by no means common; I just know of other classes (in or out of the department) that would be helpful for most students to have before graduating. Some sort of research requirement would also be nice to see (optional at this point). My department was very helpful, and the advising staff was great. The department itself is geared more to students interested in pursuing a doctorate in some scientific discipline after graduation. I ended up going to medical school and still felt well prepared (and even ahead of the curve at times) even compared to people next to me fresh out of the Ivy League.

Academics at OU are good, but not necessarily world class. I think it depends on what you want to study. I was political science, and while we didn't always get the best classrooms, i did have some excellent professors. The general trend at OU is that classes for your first year or two will be big, as you have a lot of students clearing out core requirements. However, as you progress in your degree, specialized classes tend to be small. In those classes, the professors generally take the time to get to know you. I had very good relationships with several professors, and would even occasionally see them outside of class for beers or lunch.