The University of North Dakota

Date: Apr 28 2010
Major: Other (This Major's Salary over time)
UND's marketing makes the Aviation program look excellent but when I got there, the program was ridiculous. The UND aviation program was full of incompetent professors. By incompetent, I mean they are gone on their little "business trips" or "conference talks" two or three times a week, nearly every week of the semester so we are left with inexperienced "substitute" professors. A single lecture course was being taught by two professors essentially. Not all professors were like this, but almost half the faculty had "more important business" to attend to. Could not get a hold of professors for disputing grades or asking questions.

The weather was almost always terrible so no one could practice flying, yet you had to pay tuition and spend money. Most people had to settle for "Incomplete" grades because the weather problems. Often times, it would take two semesters to finish a single course because of the weather and that meant spending more years (and money) in school.

The financial aid system was an awful bureaucracy with papers getting lost, people not doing their jobs properly or taking days or weeks to deposit money into accounts, computer and transaction errors, money not going into aviation accounts on time, thus not being able to fly, ect.

Other bad things about this school is a lack of friendly atmosphere, stingy and mean professors. Probably because the city has the coldest temperatures and longest winters in the country. Temperatures were regularly between -20 and -40 degrees F along with heavy winds and wind chill. Days are also darker and shorter due to the high latitudes. (All of these are bad Aviation training factors)

I was advised numerous times before joining UND Aviation to visit www.undsucks.com review but I brushed it off. I really wish I had taken the writers advice seriously because it was accurate to a dime. Many of these negatives were common among my classmates as well. I would never go to this school again and I would not recommend anyone else going there either. My advice is to ignore the flashy advertising (Harvard of Aviation) and just go to Southern Illinois instead where my friends had been quite successful and happy with their eduation.

About the only good things about this school was General ed. classes like Mathematics, Computer Science, Economics, etc. There are a few good restaurants, a nice library and that's about it. The fighting Sioux hockey team and Ralph Engelstad Arena are a great positive but this really doesn't put a dent in the negatives. Overall, I would not go to this school if I could do it all over again.