The University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill

Date: Apr 09 2013
Major: Biology (This Major's Salary over time)
For starters, I can say that the whole "racial tension" bit from other reviews is junk. Although Carolina is in the South (and yes, there are definitely still issues to be worked out for everyone to get along), you'd have to try really hard not to learn a million things about the world around you and the many, many different perspectives of its student body. As a naive kid that grew up in rural NC, I am so thankful for the chance to befriend and get to know people from all races, orientations, backgrounds, etc etc, and just having the chance to listen to different people's stories and their point of view on things. I feel that I am a better and more compassionate human being because of it.

As a Christian, I can tell you that this is a unique opportunity for you to grow in your faith while learning to get along with people that quite possibly, completely disagree with you. The college missionaries that work here (check out Chi Alpha, IV, or Cornerstone) are a resource that is worth more than pure gold in helping you to make decisions for yourself…in fact, if you're considering a career in ministry, I would even challenge you to get a 4-year degree at Carolina and use one of these great campus ministries as a launching point for your career.

As a BS Bio major, I can tell you that the intro courses (intro to bio, intro to chem) are weedout…do everything possible to take these anywhere else or come in with AP credit (or just be a genius who can outsmart a class of 200+ students) so your GPA stays intact. Once you get out of the really big classes and start into the more focused classes, the quality of education skyrockets. I have never worked harder for an A (or sometimes a C) in my life, but the academic rigor prepared me very well for the outside world. I ended up switching fields and went into IT/management, instead, but I can tell you that the quality of my work, my writing, math skills, everything, is so much more polished and sharp than people I've seen come out of other institutions with greater student loans and no real skills to show for it. The catch: If you definitely want to go to med school (dental school, etc, also), there is a GPA game to play and it may be better to go to State or ECU where you will get the educational base you need, but will run into less cut-throat competition and you honestly have a better chance of a better GPA, and then go to Carolina for Med/Dental.

For people not necessarily looking at grad school: If you can ace the weedout classes and *do lab research*, the sciences @ UNC are top notch (bio, chem, etc). I've also had friends go through their comp. sci, school of journalism & mass. comm., and business school and all of us are a) employed b) successful and c) our degrees were well-worth the investment.

If I had to do it over again, I would definitely go back to Carolina (but given my career choice, would maybe have picked a BSBA from the Business school as my primary major and maybe minored in Bio, instead).