University of Rochester
- Inside Scoop

Professors

The professors at the U of R are obviously smart people, most of them holding doctorates in their field of study, but that doesn't mean they know how to teach. Because Rochester is a big research school, you get the feeling that the only reason some professors are dragging through their less than enthusiastic kectures is so they can do research here and that research is their main priority. Don't get me wrong, there are some amazing, passionate professors here, but ask around and look them up to see if they are here for the students or for their research careers. The good, life changing professors are just a little harder to find.

Are you undecided?

While there is a lot of flexibility availiable at the U of R because there are no course requirements, this is not exactly the best place for students who have no idea what they would like to pursue. Some students have the ability to try out different courses before deciding on a major, but because there are no requirements, you start picking out classes and mapping out schedules that will bring you to a desired major from day one. For example, if you are thinking about pre-med, you basically need to know by freshman year so you can start the science and math courses your first semester or you may not have time for everything. Also, if you want to make a radical switch from something like biology to poli-sci, it would be very difficult because you've most been likely on a bio major track from the start and wouldn't have tome to finish a humanities major. Its great to come here if you know exactly what you want. Yet, if you have no idea what you want to do, you may get far into one discipline and then find yourself stuck if you want to switch because there were no required classes to fill up your first four semesters.

Academics

So the curriculum is pretty relaxed, so you can more or less take whatever you want Freshman year, but of course the downside of it, is that you can't switch to like engineering major or pre-med if you don't start it freshman or even sophomore year. The campus can be enclosed at times, and there aren't much opportunities to go off campus. There are usually plenty of fun activities on campus every week.