The University of Colorado - Denver

Date: Feb 26 2011
Major: Finance (This Major's Salary over time)
Originally, I attended the University of Colorado campus in Boulder for a Quantitative Finance program. I was automatically admitted into the honors business program there based on my good performance (straight A's) in high school. I ended up hating the school, the people and my entire experience and left after only a semester, transferring down to UC Denver.

As with all schools, there are pros and cons, but I can honestly say that I am in a much better situation.

Pros: The students are far less arrogant and snotty. Despite the fact that it is a commuter campus, I've found it to be much easier to meet people in my classes and make friends. You do have to work at maintaining these friendships outside of class, however, since there isn't much of a social life on campus. The campus is also extremely diverse, which is refreshing. The cost of attendance is a really great value, particularly if you are commuting from home, which is what I do. I've also had some really exemplary professors and haven't had many poor professors. I also really like being able to go downtown for lunch, or grab dinner with classmates in the evening. While commuting in rush hour will always suck (I don't have access to a light rail station), the conveniences of a big city are really great and coupled with the diversity of the campus, I've not felt the "rich kid" attitude that is abundant and highly concentrated in Boulder.

Cons: I do feel like you can tell a difference in admission standards here, when compared to Boulder. I feel like I've had a lot of students in my classes who somehow managed to pass prerequisites and not learn anything. People in their last year of a finance degree shouldn't get confused by the time value of money and should also be capable of the Algebra my sister in middle school is doing! I do feel like the lower level academics were extremely easy when compared to similar classes I took in Boulder, but now that I am getting into my upper division classes, they have become more rigorous. I really love the small classes and the fact that I can get to know all of my professors (an impossibility in my 500 person lectures in Boulder). It's so much easier to speak with a professor during office hours, or even to ask questions in class. Plus, it's nice getting to know some of the same people and to be able to work on things with them .

My biggest grievance is with the administration and business advising faculty. Registration is almost always a nightmare (every semester, I have to get someone to enroll me in my classes because I am currently in the prerequisite for a class I need in the following semester and I haven't technically "passed" yet - Despite the fact that I have a 4.0 GPA, it's always a topic of dispute with advisors), and since this is a commuter campus, many of my business classes go until 7-9pm. it's also a little difficult to schedule business classes and science and math classes together because the business classes start and end at different times. I know of two people in the advising office who are extremely helpful (if you ever need to speak with anyone, talk to Nancy or Christina), but I always feel like I'm getting pushed out the door if I don't get to meet with either of them. The work study students running the desks are entirely unhelpful and rude and my "official" advisor is, without a doubt, the most unintelligent and unhelpful person I've met. Ever.

I do want to point out that I don't believe this is the case in other departments. I've been doing a double major in Accounting and Finance for the last three years with minors in Economics and Mathematics. Recently, I've dropped my Accounting major in favor of a dual degree in Mechanical Engineering. Between all these areas of study, I've been able to meet with several different advisors from different departments and they have ALL been extremely helpful. I was blown away by how much the Engineering and Math advisors wanted to, and were able to, help me.

Overall, I like this school. Sometimes I feel like I'm really missing out on a "true" college experience (even though I did live both in Boulder and downtown for a little while) but if that's the case, so are a lot of other kids in my classes, so it's not a big deal. I used to get frustrated with people because I rarely met anyone who read books or seemed to care much about actually learning, but that has vastly changed since I've started more of my engineering courses (so that might just be a trend in the Bschool). I'm really happy with my academic career here and I think I'll be able to find a great job after I graduate, which is most important to me in the long run. I'd recommend UCD.