The University of North Alabama

Date: Dec 05 2012
Major: Education (This Major's Salary over time)
Parking is bad, but it is like this at pretty much every university. I usually drove around for a while (30 mins) to find parking after 8am.

I lived in the dorms the first year. Some were okay, Rivers and Rice are not so great. They are growing sketchier. As an attractive femaile, I was often hounded, yelled at, hit on by black males that are always hanging out around the entrances in packs, smoking and whatever else. I'm not being racist, it just happened that it was always black males. I never had problems with white males. The dorms are not very nice, and there are lots of "Res Life" workers but they are very annoying, snobby, clique-y Baptist types who chatter about stupid stuff and think they're the center of the universe along with UNA.

The fraternities and sororites are stupid. Basically just there to make the stuck up people feel better about being in at a cheaper, smaller, boring university.

There is not a lot of diversity in the faculty. Most of the departments are small, so two or three teachers are likely to be teaching the majority of the classes, so you are out of luck if you are trying to avoid a certain professor. They are generally very helpful.

I changed my major MANY times, so I can review several of them. The best department on campus is without a doubt, the GEOGRAPHY DEPARTMENT. I didn't stay in this department, but if Geography had been the career for me, I would have stayed til graduation. The professors are so kind, they were like family to me. Dr. Strong is the department chair, and he is very grandfatherly and gets to know you on a personal level. The professors are the kind that you can hang out with outside of class, at any time of the day. They have trips that you can go on, and you really become family. You bond over Geography. Dr. Gaston is also great. I was friends with his son and his assistant, so he would help me with labs at 11:00 at night if I needed it, and he was so helpful, he allowed me to make up all of my work if I missed. They were like my parents and grandparents. Too bad I switched. It is a very family-like environment. Dr. Strong does a wonderful job hiring faculty.

The Education department is strange and impersonal, kind of cold, and the professors seem bored, particularly Felecia Harris. There are tons of hoops to jump through, it is very frustrating. This is why I'm transferring to MTSU after I get married. If I stay at UNA, I will graduate a year after I am supposed to.

The Foreign language department is decent, I guess. Dr. Christy is eccentric, but a nice guy, although he will teach one 100 level course and it will be the easiest course you ever take, and then another 100 level course he teaches will feel like a 300 level course. I would like him more if I didn't know personal things about him. That is the thing about Florence and UNA. They are both small, so you will know just about everybody after being here a few years, and it will feel like high school all over again.

Dr. Adler is weird and a frustrating teacher.

Dr. Vance is nice.

Dr. Infanger is nice, but his teaching sucks. But he is very nice and helpful and I liked him a lot.

The English department is fair, but traditional and boring.

Check out the Writing Center. Dr. Koch is one of the best people to walk that campus. He is intelligent, kind, and helpful. If you need help with writing, it is a great, free resource.

To be honest, when I think about the University as a whole, I am rather bored, and the board of directors could probably care less about the students' needs. They really just want more money, and they want to be seen as a competitive university. Although none of the students wanted it (literally, there was even a poll), the university still opted to go to Division I, even though the football sucked in Division II, and now tuition is higher. They want to renovate and build new buildings, but won't do anything about the parking.

The communications department had a weird, 1970s vibe to me. Very old and boring. Not really up to date. I changed from this major. And the math department is not great either.

I wish the attendence policy was different. I don't like going to class, I am smart and can make an A without wasting gas money driving around, trying to find parking, just to listen to a professor read off of a powerpoint for an hour and a half. I had one class that I made all A's in, and the teacher gave me a C for my attendence. When I spoke to her about it, she said "College is preparing you for the real world. You wouldn't just skip work if you didn't feel like going, would you?" I replied "Don't patronize me. I've had a job since I was 16 years old and I'm working two jobs now, and I've missed work a total of 5 times because of sickness." And I walked out. The professors are douchebags when it comes to attendence.

After being here for four years, I'm thoroughly sick of it. I am bored to death and I'm sick of scrambling for courses to register for each semester, becauese they don't offer certain courses but maybe every three semesters. It makes it impossible to graduate in 4 or 5 years. I am so glad I'm getting out of here.

Safety is becoming an issue also.

You will also find that there are holds on your account from time to time. You'll go to the business office and they will say "That's weird," and take it off.