Shenandoah UniversityAcademics Summary

Written by Julie Basile

Julie Basile

Hometown

Aberdeen, Maryland

Major

Biology/Pre-Med

Grad Year

2014

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The academics at SU are quite strong. The teachers are always willing to step forward and help students as much as they can. The professors are always available in their office and/or can easily respond to an email within three days, sometimes instantly. SU's main academic strengths include the conservatory and the arts and sciences portions. These are the two main subjects people come to study at Shenandoah. But where there's a strength, there must be a weakness. The weakness comes in around finals when everybody is frantically trying to get work done. Some students miss deadlines or forget to drop a class; everything on campus can be chaotic and frustrating, but everybody always seems to pull through in the end.

Class scheduling can be difficult, especially when you're a freshman going into your second semester. WebAdvisor (the source where students register for classes) occasionally crashes, and students panic because there's a chance they may not get the class desired. The workload mainly depends on the amount of credit hours per week a student chooses to take on: 12 credit hours is the minimum for a full-time student and 18 credit hours is the max. The workload can get very stressful toward midterms when students are at the climax of a class. Grading is done on a 10-point scale, but some teachers still occasionally use the seven-point scale. All together, SU has strong academics, but students have to work and strive to accomplish the grades they want to achieve.