The Tulane University of Louisiana

Date: Dec 29 2004
Major: Biology (This Major's Salary over time)
In my honest opinion, Tulane is a waste of money. There are clearly not enough classes for science majors and the premed program totally sucks. The school has no program set up for volunteering and research set up for premedical students. It has no program set up with it's med school, that's right not even with it's own med school. That tells you something about the school.

Crappy Science classes:

The science department is at best weak. The faculty is unhelpful and aloof. The classes which they advertise to be small are quite large for a school the size of tulane. Now i know that there's people who will be reading this and will be saying of course the classes will be big all intro science classes are big. Well i'm sorry, but it's not just the intro class. Even the more advanced classes such as microbiology which is a 400 level class has an enrollemtn count of 90 people. wtf? Am i seriously wasting my money on this?

To add to the problem to large classes, tulane is too cheap or hire more science professors to teach the courses, thus the students in turn suffer. The students are only able to choose from one or two sections of a certain class. This includes intro classes. intro classes!!! ie. This spring semester tulane is only offering two intro. psychology class. only 2 sections… tulane's inability, or should i rather say unwillingness, to add extra sections reflect poorly on the school. It also hinders a student considerablly. How so? Well it limited the flexibilty of a student to register for a class he or she needs or really want. ie. I am a cell and mole. bio major. I have to take german this semester and genetics. Unfortunately for me there are only 2 Germ 102 sections offered and only 2 Cell 205 Genetics sections offered. (Only 2! How sad is that? Genetics is required by many science majors at tulane and many premed decides to take it because of the increasing amount of genetics questions on the MCAT) One of the german class, the one with the really good professor conflicts with the Genetics class. The other genetics class is only open to university college students, so i can't register for it. Also it is offerred only once a week and it's at night from 6-9. So i was forced to take the other genetics class which btw is taught by a mediocre professor. This in turn forces me to register for the new german professor who lacks teaching experience.

What my example demostrates is that tulane will screw up your schedule. The competiviness of registering for classes also sucks.

Advisros:

My advisor sucked! He was a black asshole who was very racial to me. He's Robert Carrier. He once told me that i was sad and should be damn ashamed of myself because i can not speak vietnamese, which i can. He also was very ignorant. He suggested that i not take general biology and general chemistry my freshman year. If i had done that i would not be able to finish my prereqs before the MCATs.

Weather is horrible:

I just had to comment after i read someone's post about how the weather is wonderful down here in new orleans. The weather is horrible. It rains one day and then is humid and dry the next. One day is it 30 something degrees and the next it is 90+. It is humid and wet. It rains often and the rain lasts a very long time. The temperature is always humid. Even though the temperature outside may be about 80-90 degrees because of the humidity which is always near the 100% it will feel like 100 or so. Also it is not always in the 50's during the winter. Just yesterday we were the same temperature as New York city. (Note: I'm writing this review during the winter)

The campus:

Many people have stated that tulane's campus is beautiful. It is not. The buildings do not match and it looks like a regular state/city college. The good looking buildings, dwindle, gisbon, etc, are all old and has a nasty smell to them. The desk and rooms inside these buildings are clearly out of date and the desk has a sticky residue that you would not like putting your arms against. It is clear that tulane has not put that 60 million dollar in donation into good use. I swear the campus is like a hodgepodge. The library looks like a regular old building and the rooms such. The turf on campus is a combination of native weeds and mud. The trees do not turn red when a change of seasons, infact they are all different kinds of trees. This incongruous setting makes tulane seem out of place and not continuous.

Professors:

I found the professors at tulane to be average. They are not worth the 40+ grand a year. The math teachers are horrible, infact you leanr more from the TAs. The chemistry professors this year were also horrible. they could not teach for the life of them and that book they had us use for chemistry was horrid. Petrucci is the worst chem book alive. Do yourself a favor and go buy zhang or some other chem book if you are required to use petrucci at your school.

As for the city:

The city is not a good place to life. I warn you… and i repeat… New orleans is not a good place to live. It is not a good place to raise your family and it is not a good place to study because of all the distractions. Crime is a major problem for the city. I really hate it when there's people out there who choose to ignore the simply fact and keep reminding themselves that crime is associated with every major city in america. Newsflash. New Orleans is not a big city. Jefferson parish, the parish adjacented to new orleans parish, has more people living in it then new orleans does. For a city the size of new orleans the crime rate is extraordinarily high. Just because Tulane is located in uptown doesn't itmean it's safe from crime. The campus police are lazy and would rather walk around giving tickets than look out for crooks. Every day there's a new yellow flyer on campus stating the happenings of a crime the night before. There's always some flyers about a group of tulane college students being robbedt at gun point and beat beaten with a gun until the point where blood would show up. Just the other day my friend stated how he saw some kid sitting near the front entrance of his dorm surrounded by campus police and emt. He kid was bleedingly profusely. Apparent he was robbedt by two black guys with gunns.

Also for those looking for a place that's urban, don't be fooled by tulane's location. Although it is located in the city of new orleans it is far from the CBD. Infact the CBD is considered quite small for a city of new orleans size.

As for diversity:

Diversity si a thing forgotten at tulane. The majority of the student body is composed to white students. Even though new orleans is 66+ % black, 20+ % white, 2+% asian, and 2+% spanish, the school is disproportioned. (The city itself is not that diverse in fact. For many it may be a culture shock because of the high percentage of blacks.) I find that many of my peers are uninterested in academics and would rather party everyday, though there are exceptions. It is also true what about tulane. There are many students here who got in because they are rich. You can intentify them right away. They come into a gen bio or gen chem lecture and are repetitive about the fact that they are "majoring" in premed. Yet after the professor returns their test and you catch a glimpse of their failing grade you know the reason why they are here.

HTH