Oregon State University

Date: Sep 08 2008
Major: Political Science (This Major's Salary over time)
Overall, despite the fact that OSU has many pros and cons alike, I would rate my experience there as positive. I am an out of state student from the Bay Area, and transitioning to life in small-town Oregon took some time, but now I genuinely enjoy it. Below are the positives and negatives of OSU in a nutshell.

Negatives: Corvallis is a fairly small city without much to do. Although it is close to Portland, the distance is just long enough to make the trip inconvinient. I've found that many of the students at OSU come from the Portland area, and tend to stick with their high school cliques. It's almost sad that they are too close-minded to meet new people. Many of them walk around campus and Corvallis thinking that they are the greatest human being ever to grace this planet, when in reality they are just uninteresting douchebags. Academically, it's a mixed bag. Most of my classes have been extremely well taught by great profs/TAs, an the information I learned was actually valuable in life. However, a handful of classes I took were rediculously unneccessary. They were full of useless information taught at too fast a pace by incompetent professors who likely learned English from Google translator. I have also had a hard time getting in touch with my advisors. They are very busy, and know nothing about any of their students.

Pros: Despite Corvallis' small size, if you are willing to look hard enough you can always find something to do…no matter what. OSU can be a pretty good party school, you just need connections to find out where the parties are. Pretty much all of the houses within a half-mile radius from campus are inhabited by students which creates a pretty cool student community. Safey is never an issue, as there are campus security, Corvallis police, Oregon state troopers, and federal police patrolling campus all the times. Speaking of campus…it's beautiful. My sister went to an ivy, and my parents think that OSU is even prettier than her school was. Corvallis is surrounded by some of the most beautiful landsape I have ever seen, and is centrally located between Portland, world-class skiing, breathtaking coastline and beaches, hundreds of miles of hiking trails, and endless forests. As mentioned earlier, academics at OSU are definitely up to par. Most professors are great, and easily approachable. All of my TAs except a handfull were good enouhg to be teaching their class unassisted. From what I have heard from peers, nearly every department is great. Most students at OSU are genuinely hardworking, friendly, intelligent, interesting people who enjoy life. It was very easy for me to make friends with many different kinds of people. One of the best things about OSU is athletics. Beaver nation is awesome. My family are mostly Raider fans and Raider nation is pretty insane, but Beavers give them a run for their money. School pride is rampant at OSU. It's really nice to walk around campus and see at least half of the students wearing some kind of OSU gear. Overall, OSU has been a great experience. I am really happy i decided to get out of California for a while to enjoy all that Oregon State has to offer.