The University of Hawaii Manoa

Date: Mar 15 2013
Major: Natural Resources (This Major's Salary over time)
Overall I'm glad I came to UH, I just wish I had known everything I do then.

The bad news:

Financial aid is horrible. I had a great first semester until I was flat broke because FA screwed me. Then my grades plummeted because…

The civil service are lazy, racist and don't care about students or faculty. Most are there to have an easy job but can make you miserable on purpose. Working for them was one of the worst experiences I've ever had.

Social life. Most locals don't live on campus unless they're from off-island. So expect to be with the haoles. But whether local or out-of-state you're dealing with, expect to get the douche treatment a lot. There's a huge jock element: ignorant, homophobic, paranoid that gets old. I've heard that the women are really nasty to each other. Everyone tells me that I know so many people on campus and yet there are few that I would consider friends.

Locals tend to have their old groups of friends and don't want to add you. Not a good singles campus since a lot of people are in relationships.

It's just not a good place to socialize. If you can get through the major awkward sauce to strike up a conversation you have a shot, but dont' expect it to go anywhere. Campus is dead by 2:30 PM, but few people are on campus before 9:30 AM.

This is not an intellectual campus overall. There are great arts programs here and other opportunities, but few undergraduates have any interest in them.

On the plus side:

The good faculty are really helpful and kind. There's just enough bad ones that you'll have to consciously avoid them.

Some of the programs here are really underrated. Dance, Business, Law, Geology, Oceanography and Botany are just some. There's a lot of great opportunities here for scientists.

If you want an international experience this is the place. A large percentage of the campus body is foreign. The East-West Center keeps people from countries you typically wouldn't see represented at a lot of major universities around campus. There is no majority ethnicity although most students are Asian or mixed-Asian.

Honolulu is an interesting city and there are none else like it in the US. The hiking here is incredible. The surf and beach life attract people for a reason, and in fact are still mostly what young locals do for fun.

If you come here have realistic expectations. You're not going to be living out the surfer dream in paradise most likely. Housing here is far beneath a lot of mainlanders' standards, on-and-off campus. Most white mainlanders I know have either transferred or wanted to. There's still a lot who really liked it here. It's expensive and you will either have to adjust to a different culture.