Seton Hill University

Date: Aug 21 2012
Major: Computer Science (This Major's Salary over time)
I transferred to Seton Hill University (or SHU pronounced "shoe") after going to community college for a few years. At community, I was a very bright and aspiring student, making deans list, getting nice financial aid rewards, and loving my classes and teachers for the most part. Seton Hill? Complete opposite. It's made my regretful and depressed that I wasted a year of my life going here.

Before I go on, Seton Hill isn't that bad of a college. I don't want to be 110% biased and write a complete negative review that doesn't help people looking into going here (and I will try to cover all aspects including the campus/social life, or lack thereof). Depending on what you are going here for they can be a very well rounded college (my sister got her MBA here). If you are pursuing a degree in liberal arts, business, mathematics, or the fine arts like music/art, you may have come to the right place (but keep reading because some aspects of this college my turn you away when you hear about my experience). The macbook/ipad program is great but it is absolutely not free and it IS snuck into your final bill (although DO NOT choose this college just for the iPad and Macbook you can buy this on your own and also it can be a HUGE distraction from your studies, they really are just Facebook machines from what I seen people using them for). Lastly SHU is an accredited, traditional college that will get you a respected job and career if your program of study is right and you work hard.

Now for the downsides. If you are going to this college for something technical like computer science, engineering, or anything in the IT/Engineering world I hugely recommend you walk away. First off, the degrees are very limited. Other colleges like Penn State or Pitt that cost nearly the same offer several "fields" of computer science and/or engineering, like instead of computer science you can go for web development, software engineering, or forensics, many more specific (and sometimes better) fields.

Second and more importantly, what you are learning here is crap at least in these fields. Pretty much all the computer/engineering courses are severely outdated. Many students I witness struggled in the programming classes because they weren't taught a good foundation in computer programming before being taught higher end languages. Many courses here FORCE you to use UNIX computers physically located at the school. Your $2,000 Macbook becomes useless for this and it is nearly impossible to get working from home on this stuff so if you are a commuter driving far you are gonna have a bad time! Lastly I hugely question the quality of what you learn here. C++ programming is taught to you in an outdated game development kit called "Dark GDK". Not once in the whole C++ program did I ever learn how to make a normal Windows application like a web browser, word processor, or even a simple goddamn calculator.

Some of the professors at this college are EXTREMELY unprofessional. One teacher at this campus dyes her hair pink, wears silly t-shirts/jeans, and is extremely difficult to work with. Why the hell would a college even hire someone like this? Liberal arts teachers, one of them I had smells like she smokes pot before class. Another one flirts with female students who is a married man. What is this, a three ring circus? For these reasons outside of the computer/engineering degrees I don't think it's worth taking the risk of going to this college for the money they take.

I can't say enough bad things about the professors and quality of education at this college. It's severely lacking. It felt like no one cared or wanted to help me in courses. Some teachers would only run you down if you struggled in classes. One professor I had would get jealous of my work in class and was purposely knocking off points and giving me a hard time over assignments I was completing. Shouldn't I be praised and complimented for working hard?

Now I'm going to get into the physical campus itself and the students. First off all, be weary that this college is kind of "homosexual" friendly… My ex-girlfriend who was a previous SHU student turned on me and ended up being a lesbian. There are "packs" of girls that look like obvious lesbians. There are also several open gay men at this college I am not comfortable around, including some professors. I've never been anti-gay before but after what I was put through especially with the girlfriend it made me very depressed. You can't blame the college on this and this is a part of my personal life but be weary that people have secret lives at this college. Also, this college was formally an all-girls school so the woman here may be of a different allegiance boys!

That gets me to the next thing, social life. This campus is like a group of brainwashed zombies. People are very quite and to their selves. It was difficult to make friends, talk to girls, and the whole place just had a weird vibe to it. People just aren't very approachable, no one smiles at you much, it's just weird. This isn't a bad thing. It's nice to have a nice, mellow campus where you can study outside in peace. It's not a party school, which I'm okay with, but the college was a little too dead, and what are we without a healthy dose of human interaction in our lives?

The very last thing… the college itself. The building is beautiful and very old. I respect it's history and the grounds are nice. There are on-campus police but I think the place was a little too open. Like anybody could literally walk in any door at the place… is this really safe? There is no security checks or metal detectors. In today's sickened society with James Holmes type maniacs, do you really feel safe in a place where anybody could stick a gun in their backpack and walk around unnoticed?

Although the campus is nice, there are it's downsides. The parking is crammed and terrible. The whole place is on a giant hill that gets dangerously icy during winter. If you don't have a handicap card you're gonna have a long walk to your classroom. The dorms, I commuted but I seen the dorms and they are utter, overpriced ****.

Do your homework before coming here. If you are going for a liberal arts major and you really love the college, then by all means go. But for anything else outside of this, this college just doesn't do it well. They are not a computer/engineering college and they are trying to hard to be one. Also be weary of the people/professors here.