The University of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh Campus

Date: Jan 01 2005
Major: Linguistics (This Major's Salary over time)
For the most part, I like my school The Linguistics Department is great and the faculty is approachable I have even taken a math and a stat class with excellent profs who loved what they taught and were very fair with students.

Generally, I have no complaints about the full fledged profs…but the TAs can be annoying and some students can be a major pain. Watch out because many of them are liberals and if you say anything contrary to their liberal "philosophy" you r grade will suffer for it. Group work can be a real pain if you end up with snooty partners who want to run everything without the input of anyone else.

The administration has been very friendly and helpful (admissions, financial aid, study abroad, advising, housing office, etc).

Pitt is definitely a well wired campus. They have wifi hotspots around campus and several computer labs, one of which is open 24/7 with both Macs and PCs. There is a 24/hr tech help desk which is great. They have a mailroom thats open til 7 which is great for me! The food is nothing to write home about, though its not entirely terrible. They have a Freshens Smoothie joint right on campus and that #9 always hits the spot for me! I also love thier vegetarian egg rolls and their baked cod fish…yum yum! I like the idea of dining dollars and Pitt Funds…you can check out the website to find out more on that. The meal plans are expensive though.

I am an out of state student who stunk at SAT/ACTs but had otherwise good stats (top 6%, 3.9gpa, etc) so I missed out on scholarships. Tuition rises every year and I just hope all the loans and grants that I have wil continue to cover it over the next two years. Make sure you look into alternative funding because Pitts not that generous to out of staters with lopsided stats like mine.

I LOVE the bus system. You can get anywhere on the bus for free with your Pitt ID…great plus. Pittsburgh is an OK city…its pretty safe. I am not into club hopping and partying so I couldnt tell you about the "nightlife". I actually love th ecold weather so to me the snow, etc is great!

My classes have been challenging and fun (especially in Linguistics) and I have not had any that I thought were too large. Even the larger ones made up for it with the recitations, which were not bad (as long as you don't have a rotten TA). Registration can be a pain sometimes, but you can usually get what you want if you go early and you keep going back to check on openings in the classes you want. Really only the smaller classes fill up quickly.

I sort of ended up here without really "planning" for it. Had I done more planning, I probably would have choosen a different place. I am glad I choose it out of the ones that I applied to though.