In
my honest opinion, Tulane is a waste of money. There
are clearly not enough classes for science majors and the
premed program totally sucks. The school has no program set
up for volunteering and research set up for premedical students.
It has no program set up with it's med school,
that's right not even with it's own med school. That
tells you something about the school. Crappy Science classes:
The science department is at best weak. The faculty is
unhelpful and aloof. The classes which they advertise to be
small are quite large for a school the size of
tulane. Now i know that there's people who will be
reading this and will be saying of course the classes
will be big all intro science classes are big. Well
i'm sorry, but it's not just the intro class. Even
the more advanced classes such as microbiology which is a
400 level class has an enrollemtn count of 90 people.
wtf? Am i seriously wasting my money on this?
To
add to the problem to large classes, tulane is too
cheap or hire more science professors to teach the courses,
thus the students in turn suffer. The students are only
able to choose from one or two sections of a
certain class. This includes intro classes. intro classes!!! ie. This
spring semester tulane is only offering two intro. psychology class.
only 2 sections..... tulane's inability, or should i rather say
unwillingness, to add extra sections reflect poorly on the school.
It also hinders a student considerablly. How so? Well it
limited the flexibilty of a student to register for a
class he or she needs or really want. ie. I
am a cell and mole. bio major. I have to
take german this semester and genetics. Unfortunately for me there
are only 2 Germ 102 sections offered and only 2
Cell 205 Genetics sections offered. (Only 2! How sad
is that? Genetics is required by many science majors at
tulane and many premed decides to take it because of
the increasing amount of genetics questions on the MCAT) One
of the german class, the one with the really good
professor conflicts with the Genetics class. The other genetics class
is only open to university college students, so i can't
register for it. Also it is offerred only once a
week and it's at night from 6-9. So i was
forced to take the other genetics class which btw is
taught by a mediocre professor. This in turn forces me
to register for the new german professor who lacks teaching
experience.
What my example demostrates is that tulane will
screw up your schedule. The competiviness of registering for classes
also sucks.
Advisros:
My advisor sucked! He was
a black asshole who was very racial to me. He's
Robert Carrier. He once told me that i was sad
and should be damn ashamed of myself because i can
not speak vietnamese, which i can. He also was very
ignorant. He suggested that i not take general biology and
general chemistry my freshman year. If i had done that
i would not be able to finish my prereqs before
the MCATs.
Weather is horrible:
I just had to
comment after i read someone's post about how the weather
is wonderful down here in new orleans. The weather is
horrible. It rains one day and then is humid and
dry the next. One day is it 30 something degrees
and the next it is 90+. It is humid and
wet. It rains often and the rain lasts a very
long time. The temperature is always humid. Even though the
temperature outside may be about 80-90 degrees because of the
humidity which is always near the 100% it will feel
like 100 or so. Also it is not always in
the 50's during the winter. Just yesterday we were the
same temperature as New York city. (Note: I'm writing this
review during the winter)
The campus:
Many people have
stated that tulane's campus is beautiful. It is not. The
buildings do not match and it looks like a regular
state/city college. The good looking buildings, dwindle, gisbon, etc, are
all old and has a nasty smell to them. The
desk and rooms inside these buildings are clearly out of
date and the desk has a sticky residue that you
would not like putting your arms against. It is clear
that tulane has not put that 60 million dollar in
donation into good use. I swear the campus is like
a hodgepodge. The library looks like a regular old building
and the rooms such. The turf on campus is a
combination of native weeds and mud. The trees do not
turn red when a change of seasons, infact they are
all different kinds of trees. This incongruous setting makes tulane
seem out of place and not continuous.
Professors:
I
found the professors at tulane to be average. They are
not worth the 40+ grand a year. The math teachers
are horrible, infact you leanr more from the TAs. The
chemistry professors this year were also horrible. they could not
teach for the life of them and that book they
had us use for chemistry was horrid. Petrucci is the
worst chem book alive. Do yourself a favor and go
buy zhang or some other chem book if you are
required to use petrucci at your school.
As for the
city:
The city is not a good place
to life. I warn you..... and i repeat... New orleans
is not a good place to live. It is not
a good place to raise your family and it is
not a good place to study because of all the
distractions. Crime is a major problem for the city. I
really hate it when there's people out there who choose
to ignore the simply fact and keep reminding themselves that
crime is associated with every major city in america. Newsflash.
New Orleans is not a big city. Jefferson parish, the
parish adjacented to new orleans parish, has more people living
in it then new orleans does. For a city the
size of new orleans the crime rate is extraordinarily high.
Just because Tulane is located in uptown doesn't itmean it's
safe from crime. The campus police are lazy and would
rather walk around giving tickets than look out for crooks.
Every day there's a new yellow flyer on campus stating
the happenings of a crime the night before. There's always
some flyers about a group of tulane college students being
robbedt at gun point and beat beaten with a gun
until the point where blood would show up. Just the
other day my friend stated how he saw some kid
sitting near the front entrance of his dorm surrounded by
campus police and emt. He kid was bleedingly profusely. Apparent
he was robbedt by two black guys with gunns.
Also
for those looking for a place that's urban, don't be
fooled by tulane's location. Although it is located in the
city of new orleans it is far from the CBD.
Infact the CBD is considered quite small for a city
of new orleans size.
As for diversity:
Diversity si
a thing forgotten at tulane. The majority of the student
body is composed to white students. Even though new orleans
is 66+ % black, 20+ % white, 2+% asian, and
2+% spanish, the school is disproportioned. (The city itself is
not that diverse in fact. For many it may be
a culture shock because of the high percentage of blacks.)
I find that many of my peers are uninterested in
academics and would rather party everyday, though there are exceptions.
It is also true what about tulane. There are many
students here who got in because they are rich. You
can intentify them right away. They come into a gen
bio or gen chem lecture and are repetitive about the
fact that they are “majoring” in premed. Yet after the
professor returns their test and you catch a glimpse of
their failing grade you know the reason why they are
here.
HTH