The University of Tennessee - Chattanooga

Date: Mar 18 2009
Major: History/Histories (art history/etc.) (This Major's Salary over time)
As a lifelong resident of West Tennessee, the idea of coming to a beautiful city like Chattanooga was a key reason why I ended up transferring to UTC. I should have done more research looking back on it.

To give everyone a brief background, I had transfered here from UT-Martin looking for a school that offered more of a city life that I had been use to coming from Memphis. Martin was a great school academically, but the small town politics and lack of anything to do on the weekends prompted me to look for another college to finish my undergrad at. MTSU is an ok for some people and UT Knox is the place were people party and bomb out of college for the most part(GO VOLS though). I was serious about my education and was looking for a happy medium. I thought Chattanooga would be that medium I was looking for.

To be completely honest before I start, UTC is a slightly mediocre college surrounded by great scenery. I am a 3.6 student about to graduate Magna so I am not a bitter dropout trying to badmouth the college and I hope to be objective and fair in my review.

The degree program's offered at UTC are confusing and take a magnifying glass to understand. The department websites aren't very clear either. The college uses complex and confusing tables that leaves you scratching your head at times wondering what on earth you need to take just to complete your undergrad here. UT Martin doesn't have this problem as they upgraded to the Banner system years ago making thing clear and to the point and much easier to understand. CAPP at Martin owns the MOC system.

The curriculum at UTC is also way too drawn out. Their requirements just to get your Gen Ed's out of the way is ridiculous compared to what is needed at Martin or even the University of Memphis.You take alot of extra classes that are worthless outside of UTC so be wise on what you take here,especially if you are going to transfer later.

The staff at UTC isn't up to par compared to Martin. The professors here are ok/good for the most part, but nothing award winning or memorable. Martin professors strive to bring the best out of you while Chattanooga professors seem to love giving C's for solid work which would be an A at Martin or Memphis. They grade more to annoy you than improve you candidly speaking. The student-professor relationship is hard to develop,your just a number here.

There are many positives at Chattanooga though. The city is more safe than Memphis and the downtown area is really developed and fun to explore. Chattanooga blows Martin out of the water on things to do in and outside of school by a large margin. The administration at the college is more open minded than Martin and appears to listen to their students more and are actually more helpful in certain ways.

Overall Chattanooga looks better on paper than it actually is and harder than it really should be for a liberal arts college and compared to it's sister institutions.There is no perfect college so take out of this what is the most important to you in choosing a college.