The University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill

Date: Apr 12 2013
Major: Political Science (This Major's Salary over time)
I would like to focus in this comment on telling you guys about the people working for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Not professors or TAs (I was generally satisfied with them with a few exceptions), not students and the surrounding environment (those were quite controversial as well).

Since I am an international student, several times I had to ask for guidance on issues such as employment search, work visas, etc.

The Career Services at UNC are a joke. Career counselors never helped me with anything. Most of the time they were inaccessible to me, and whenever I had a chance to schedule an hour long appointment with them by about two-three weeks in advance, they could not answer my questions and finished with me earlier, not to mention their condescending tone and complete lack of empathy and interest in their job. Whenever I had a questions that had to do with my employment search, people working there just did not know the answer, and these were not super complicated questions that a qualified career services specialist must know, especially at a university that always brags about being so high quality! For example, I asked about my prospects of finding a job sponsored by a work visa in the US. They had to call another office, the office of international students and scholars, where counselors did not know the answer either because it had to do with jobs, a specialty of university career services. I was left without an answer at the end.

One time at the ACADEMIC ADVISOR COULD NOT SPELL WORDS CORRECTLY on a form that I asked her to fill out. The words like "practitioner" and "field." I am an international student, and I know English much better than her!

Another time I called the international students office and asked for one of their employee's advice, and she spoke with such a condescending tone I thought she's going to say that I should just go home to whatever country I came from. She was absolutely unable to help me with my question, she was obviously just trying to get rid of me as soon as possible, like she had better things to do.

For the $38,000 a year that an international student pays to go here - this plays isn't worth it. The service is horrible, the food is nasty, the students are incredibly stupid and close-minded, and the surrounding town is boring and pathetic.

The professors and some TAs are the only good thing about this university. If you really like studying and getting as much as you can from that, you'll be okay.

The bottom line though: reconsider going to UNC. You will waste those precious 4 years of your life. Especially if you're an international student.