I went to U of H for approximately a year. I came in with nearly enough credits to graduate; my goal was to do so as soon as possible.U of H is my fourth university; I've attended what are considered 'better' and 'worse' universities previously; as such I feel that I hold a unique perspective.
I hated every second of UH. Here's why:
1. I wouldn't describe myself as super-brilliant, but I was smarter than all of my professors, except for the math teachers. Even worse, I felt that I was 'older', or more emotionally mature. This was depressing. I found myself a couple times unwillingly in a stature war with a couple of them. I was under the impression that they found me intimidating. The math professors thought I was arrogant, and failed me on purpose the first set of exams in order to 'teach me a lesson'. This brings me to the second point.
2. All the kids at U H are white, suburban, and have no will or personality. Right-- that's obviously false if you look at the U H demographics, but it seemed to be true of the math department. I'm rather shy and retiring myself, but the work I do requires me to yell at people, lay down the law, and generally put myself out there. I'm used to dealing with conflict and generally saying what's on my mind. I felt very out of place in the U H classrooms. It seemed that the other kids in my classes had gone to reasonably decent public high schools where they actually taught you things, had stable home lives, jobs which paid a living wage, and didn't have much experience in the adult world except at UHouston. Many of them struck me as overachievers; reasonably bright kids who worked really hard and had become really good at school. The coursework we did reflected this; for the first time in years I was required to turn in homework, and we had quizzes every two weeks. I understand that the professors were trying to 'keep us on track', make sure we were learning things, but for someone like myself who had a lot of bullshit going on in the background, having to be constantly accountable for the course material was not feasible.
I love school, I love learning, but after a pretty awful spring semester juggling work, family, and really stupid feuds with arrogant old men with bad attitudes, I think I'm going to need a good long break before I'm ready resume courses.Hopefully something I've said in all this will be useful to someone considering attending UH.
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