The University of Texas Pan American

The school is in a bad border city. I wonder if i can call it a city or town. Crime rate is high. Majority of locals cannot speak English and know how to behave. The place is very undeveloped. There is not much student life. The school is low ranking. The school 's rank reflects accordingly its education quality. Not many students are bright. The politics are too bad. Professors can go above and beyond the norway to "help" their students. If you are not their students, you should forget about the hope of being treated fairly. The grades are given very subjectively.

Students' complaints are covered up. Staffs and faculties are covered for each other. Not many complaints or comments from students are heard or lead to school 's improvement. They only give promises so that you can give up the complaint. But the situtation is much worse in the last years. The school is getting better!

The Computer Science department is overall excellent. All the faculty are actively involved in research (unlike faculty in other departments) and actually care about the courses they teach and the students. The main problem are the students. UTPA has always been an open enrollment campus so as long as you have a high school diploma and apply you are in. In the case of graduate school, as long as you have a bachelor's degree you're in. Good in theory but bad in practice. UTPA is all about graduating the most minorities and because of that many students who don't deserve a diploma get one. I've known computer science graduate students in their last semester who don't know how to install Visual Studio, the software required to program in C++, let alone code. Some theses are just 20 pages long (single-sided including the references, dedication, and a few blank pages). You don't have to put much effort to graduate but if you want to the professors will support you all the way through.

Some of the courses are demanding, such as Dr. Fowler who requires you to write multiple essays for both exams in addition to a report and extensive programming project or Dr. Schweller who expects your algorithm analysis and presentations to be very explicit and thorough, but many are not. Classes are taught to a lower level to cater students without the background since over half of them were liberal arts majors. Despite this the Computer Science graduate program is a great graduate program but if you want a challenge then make sure you get to know your professors really well as they will provide you the support to push yourself farther.

The social atmosphere is OK. Not good and usually not bad. In the valley there's some local events like Borderfest, HESTEC, Artwalk and a few others but hardly any. Most social gatherings are sponsored by UTPA and are typically empty. Most social gatherings in the valley are pretty lame and there's no local attractions apart from the beach at South Padre Island which is about a 2 hour drive away. However, people tend to be friendly and approachable.

If you go here, plan to teach yourself or ensure you make friends with the foreign doctors in the program and ask them to help you. Professors don't care about your experience, they have their own agenda and you better conform. This is not a good environment, it is doing what you can to keep your grades up in a situation where professors do not communicate to you what their expectations are. Even when they give a grading rubric, they don't follow it. Suck up to them and you might pass. It doesn't matter what you know, its all about who you blow.

The graduate program is clearly underfunded and scheduling classes is often a pain. Don't expect to graduate on the date you're told when you first enroll. The price of tuition is pretty fair and assistantships are attainable but not guaranteed.