University Buffalo

Date: Oct 19 2004
Major: English (This Major's Salary over time)
As an English major I fortunately haven't run into the situation of having a non- english speaking TA. However, If diversity is what you're looking for, this is the place to come. You can hardly walk 50 feet without hearing at least one other languauge and usually it's more. This is not an exaggeration. The professors that I've had, have been, on the whole, pretty good although they do make it pretty clear, whether intentionally or not, where they stand politically. This can be frusterating when you have to sit through an hour and a half lecture about why your political views are wrong. They also tend to be slightly condescending. This is somewhat counteracted however, by their accesibility. I have never had a problem getting in touch with any of my professors, and most of them encourage you to contact them if you ever need any help. Although it is a pretty large institution, I have found that most classes are fairly small. As a freshman I was only in two lectures, the rest had a class size of about 20 - 30. Just be sure to attend those classes because the schools attendence policy is straight out of high school. Miss four classes and the campus policy dictates that the instructor has to fail you. This is something that is not taken lightly, as most instructors will take attendence(with the exception of the large lectures). The school is broken into to sections. South, which is the older of the two and is definately the more aesthetically pleasing, is situated on Main street in north Buffalo. This is where University Heights is and all the frats are located and activity happens. North campus on the other hand is like some mutated younger brother. It's just downright, damn ugly. It was built in the 60's or 70's and is not by any means representative of some of the other architectural gems that can be found in the rest of Buffalo. There is also nothing going on there after about 7 or 8 it's really kind of an island as there is nowhere really to walk to. Buses do run in between campuses fairly regularly, although you could be waiting anywhere between 5 and 50 minutes. Unfortunately unless you're going to be a dentist or something, you will most likely have all of your classes in the North campus. I also have noticed that the school is pretty dirty. There's just crap all over the place. I see that big driving vacuum around sometimes, but thats the only cleaning I usually see being done. Napkins and newspapers can be seen strewn all about campus. If these superficial things don't bother you, then by all means, come here. You will get a good education for very cheap, and the school is getting more selective by the year. The libraries are huge with tons of online datdbases and stuff for research and the food isn't all that bad either(there's a subway and a burger king right in the middle of campus and millions of vending machines everywhere you go). Plus, you will never feel like you don't fit in because of all the different people that go here. There is no one typical UB student. After all is said and done, it's a good place that I would reccomend.