My
experience at UMass Lowell has been very poor. I started
as a Biology major - I'm in the process of
changing to Computer Science, but they won't let you officially
change until you take a certain class. The Biology and
Calculus professors I've had have been very friendly and easy
to talk to outside of class, but my other classes
I didn't feel very engaged (particularly chemistry). All the
technical classes (math, science, engineering, etc.) take place on north
campus which is very ugly unless you like the atmosphere
of run-down city with sirens and gunshots. South campus is
much prettier, which is where the music and social science
majors have their classes. I've also noticed that the students
you encounter on south campus are much friendlier and easier
to approach where the north campus students walk around with
their heads down looking at their cell phones and not
acknowledging passerby. The most interesting part of going to north
campus is walking across the bridge, which is an interesting
view the first few times but becomes a frigid death
march during the winter. Also, a couple weeks ago after
the Super Bowl the path on the bridge was splattered
with vomit which was fairly difficult to maneuver with the
cramped size of the sidewalk (there are fences on both
sides).
Living in Fox Hall is like living in a
slum. The rooms are technically doubles which have had an
extra desk, wardrobe, dresser, and bed crammed inside to convert
it into a triple. During orientation we slept in the
triples across the street in Leitch or Bourgeois which were
twice as big, but almost all freshmen end up in
Fox so I felt a little cheated. People of the
same major are all placed on the same floor, which
seemed like a good idea at first, but Biology majors
are placed on the 9th floor right below the music
majors so I get to listen to drums going day
and night.
I've never had a problem with the food
in Fox, though many of the freshman who eat there
complain about it. There are virtually no vegetarian options aside
from their questionable salad (though I did see them trying
to serve fish as a “vegetarian” meal). Definitely get a
meal plan which has enough River Hawk dollars to eat
at Southwick Hall on north campus where the food is
quite good. For reference when picking out a meal plan,
the price of a ham & cheese with 3 toppings
is $5.19.
The people in Fox can sometimes be very
discourteous. The bathroom gets toilet papered about three times a
week and sometimes the corridor gets mysteriously littered with smashed
fruits. I do respect the very resilient cleaning crew, who
manage to have the building back in respectable shape every
single morning. The moral of the story is to shower,
shave, and brush your teeth in the morning before the
bathroom gets defaced.
I sometimes find myself wishing I could
simply leave my dorm and go for a walk or
anything really to get out of Fox Hall. It can
be very inconvenient to get up or down the 9
floors between me and fresh air with the two slow
elevators being shared between all 18 floors. I usually just
use the stairs, as the elevator has been known to
drop down a few floors at random. Even if it
was easier to get outside, Lowell is just a really
awful city. I sometimes stick around on north campus for
a few hours after class just to avoid going back
to my room. The library is a pretty nice area,
as is the cafeteria in Southwick Hall.
Needless to
say, I'm transferring out next year. If anything good can
be said about my UML experience, it's that I know
nothing I encounter at my next school can be as
bad as this.