University of Oregon (Eugene: student loans, transferring to, movies)

[Panda Bear]

Hi, I'm considering transferring to the University of Oregon next year and I was wondering what the reputation of the student body was. I know the reputation for Eugene (political activists, environmentalists, artists, "hippies", etc.) but do the students of UO fall in line with that or do more students attend the school for the frat parties and football games? Thanks.

[florigidge]

i came from out of state as an older student to attend grad school in 2003. i found UO to be provincial as compared to my larger undergraduate university. it is a small university and i realized that had ramifications as to whom was hired for faculty....meaning a lot of the good ones are hired elsewhere, basically because it appears to be budget-related and/or related to being a small college.

however, for a small university, i think it may be fine for an undergraduate. my program as a graduate student however covered nothing i had not already done in real life, so that was a surprise to me. classes were three hours long and undergraduates were allowed to take graduate level classes - i think this is a UO university-wide program, not just the one i was enrolled in. i found that to be a waste of my graduate school dollars, which for an out of state student were sky-high as compared to in-state tuition and fees.

i even called my former university to ask if they allowed undergrads to take the same exact classes as graduate students and they said absolutely not.

i had a near perfect GPA, but was often irritated by the "group work" we continually had to do instead of individual work. grades then would be based on how everyone in the group had performed. this even extended into the class discussions where they incessantly made us form groups just to discuss a topic. it was as if we lost our individuality, and even good work was demeaned by the actions of the others in the group. my gpa would have been 4.0 with the exception of one person in one group early on who did nothing and all of our grades for that project were affected.

i had never heard of such a thing at my previous university where our individual work mattered the most. i felt i lost control of any destiny i might have in grad school at UO and after a year i dropped out for reasons of dissatisfaction with the program and for financial reasons. school was becoming a financial nightmare for me.

my program was not a "group" type of program - it was not psychology or sociology or even an athletic type of program. it was not pointed out to me pre-enrollment that everything was to be group related and group graded and it certainly was an unwelcome surprise for me. that - and the undergraduates who benefited from grad school without actually being graduate students.

UO does love its frats and sororities and loves football and basketball. it is like other colleges and universities in that regard. you wouldn't find anything different there than from where you are now, i would imagine. duck football games are heavily attended.

if you are transferring from a similarly small university from a small town/city in the pacific northwest or the west - or the midwest, you most likely will not have one single problem with UO.

i would advise you to ask lots of questions of the UO advisors, come visit, mingle with the students - get a good picture of what you might experience with both the school and the town.

these are my opinions, this was my experience. yours might be entirely different. i know that UO does court a lot of out of state residents - mainly because it brings in more revenue. also please keep in mind that it will take you two full years to become a resident before you can pay in-state fees, unless that has changed since 2004. my former university had a one year residency requirement; it can make a difference to an out of state student.

i know others will post their "go UO" experiences. and i don't doubt there will be differing opinions. but i am far from the rah-rah days of thinking of college as only an outlet for socialization, keggers, football games. those things are fine and even necessary when you are younger, but one has to also consider that college has become such as expensive investment that you had better be sure that the one you chose offers and gives you what you need to later move on to a career or a job.

[QuintusCinna]

I've heard of occasional classes that would have the "team" style of classes where people work in groups together to do a project, but that's not common place. I finished my master's in 3 departments there (Art History, Architecture, Multimedia design) and attempted to do History and Classics also (but decided against it later). I only had maybe 1 class that had a group project done and that was minimal. Never liked the UofO's sports or its outgoing parties. It exists, but not in the atmosphere I was around. U of O is number 97 of the top 100 universities in the US, and many of its departments are in the top 10. For Business and English Literature, I believe I remember hearing they are in the top 10 of the US. Law does well there too. You'll want to check the details before you transfer to the 20,000 student campus, of course. As for "small" I never thought of 20,000 students on campus as small. Personally, I don't like many of the professors there, but I found the same situation at other places. Too many arrogant professors.

[florigidge]

all due respect quintuscinna, i am happy that you had very few "team" projects. my discipline on the other hand was consumed by them. it, like i say, was one of the primary reasons i was dissatisfied with the program (that, and it was outdated as to real world experience and reality.)

as for the size of UO - yes, it is a small college/university. my undergrad school now has nearly 50,000 enrolled students - and it's a land grant university which needed to cap enrollment long ago at 30,000 (which is what it was when i was there - big campus then, big campus now, much larger than UO in every aspect - this can be a good thing and it can be a bad thing, depending on your preferences.)

i agree with the professor thing - yes, that's everywhere but i did have an extreme problem with one UO professor in my department who, i almost hate to say this, had some type of deep seated issue..or something. he once held our three hour class 'captive' by asking one inane, unanswerable question over and over and over and over, each time rephrasing it because the class wasn't "getting it" - he did this for three hours in which students were begging the man to stop, some women were near tears, it was a total free-for-all...all because the question was on a survey, it was personal, and no one wanted to answer it in a roomful of other people - what did he do? he rephrased the questioned and asked it again and again trying to make it so nothing would be "revealed" and yet there was no way an answer would NOT be revealing - and invasive - if someone answered it. and 'round and 'round we went - three hours.

incredibly insane, had nothing to do with our discipline/program, and frankly, i had never witnessed anything like it in all my college days past or present. at the end of class, we were told to be ready for our next class meeting with him because it would be asked again, and the whole insane thing would be replayed until he/we could reach a way to answer a question no one wanted to answer. i think the man needed to be removed from teaching. what did they do? they promoted him.

[Panda Bear]

Hi thanks for all the replies but this isn't exactly going in the direction I had hoped, maybe thats my fault for not wording my question at best. To be more precise I'm 18, and as much as I am concerned about the quality of my education, I'm more concerned with the life long friendships I'm hopefully going to make. I'm more concerned about the people I'm going to be living with for maybe the next 3 years. I love the city of Eugene and what it stands for, I'm just afraid that I will be going to a place that doesn't view the city the same way I do. In short are the majority of the students very open minded and accepting? Is it a bohemian crowd? Will i be able to find people who enjoy biking through Alton Baker (or the whole city for that matter), seeing locals bands at the Wow, movies at the Bijou, apple walnut pizza at Pizza Research Institute, etc. Or am I gonna be surrounded by a bunch of people who just live for going to 5 football games a year and partying the rest of the time?

[florigidge]

hi, panda bear - that second set of questions you pose can only be answered by you and how involved you wish to get with your three years at school. UO can be as diverse as you make it or as insulated as you make it. as an older grad student i can only offer what i experienced, and grad school can be all-consuming of one's time - and that can often mean, no free time.

from what i can gather - and i've been here for about three and a half years in the city of eugene - you can have pretty much ALL that you mentioned, but it would depend on which crowd you get hooked up with. there isn't an "either/or" to it. if you are in a college now, can you ask yourself those same questions and come up with satisfactory answers?

my experience with a large university and with a smaller university is there are all kinds of people, all kinds of experiences - it is what YOU make of it; opportunity is there to experience many different flavors, if that is what YOU want. there is a bohemian crowd, a goth crowd, there are frats and sororities, there are bikers, environmentalists, liberals, conservatives - there is no one mindset or lock step.

but no one is going to knock on your door and drag you out - if those are things you like to do, you most certainly will be able to do them and find others also interested in doing them. you're not forced by threat of a gun to go to football or basketball games, btw.

college - any college - is what YOU make of it. while it is nice to be concerned with the social aspect of college, in today's world, you should also be concerned about the academics, the faculty, and the education you will receive and whether those remaining years of your college life are worth your time and money - college is an expensive proposition, whether with loans or footing the bill yourself. if you are out of state, expect to pay much more than if you were in-state. and if you think that's not important, then wait until you graduate and have to start paying back your federal student loans - with a job you are less than thrilled with.

just a word to the wise.

[Panda Bear]

You made some really great points and I agree entirely with what you say. I do realize it's impossible and naive to define 30,000 people. I guess I'm more wondering if there is an overall feel to the campus. For an extreme example Berkeley is going to have much different feel than Westpoint. So maybe I'd be safer to say does UofO have the reputation of having a politically active, Berkeley-esque nature to it?

[florigidge]

Originally Posted by Panda Bear

You made some really great points and I agree entirely with what you say. I do realize it's impossible and naive to define 30,000 people. I guess I'm more wondering if there is an overall feel to the campus. For an extreme example Berkeley is going to have much different feel than Westpoint. So maybe I'd be safer to say does UofO have the reputation of having a politically active, Berkeley-esque nature to it?

the campus is "active politically" but no, i wouldn't in any way compare it to berkeley's reputation. UO is not the berkeley of the pacific northwest. i'm not even sure berkeley is the berkeley of the 60s/70s. i'm not sure ANY college or university is anymore.

all of them appear to have their own political groups which set up tables and try to interest other students in their causes - whether it be a political candidate or environmental issues or political issues. but as compared to the highly active political days on the late 60s/early 70s when there was a draft and that was a huge issue (i'm older; as i mentioned i was an older graduate student at UO, but i was extremely politically active in the late 60s/early 70s), i'd say the activism of today is slightly less, though no more thoughtful and sincere.

and UO has its share of all of that activism that takes place on campuses. but personally, from what i saw during my year there in 2003-2004 (i still live in eugene), it was a quiet campus in that regard. it went on, but it was more subdued than what i'd experienced personally, and from what i saw at my large land grant university, where i ended up living from 1986-2003 as a resident and not as a student.

suggestion: UO's student paper has a web site - the paper is the Emerald. Eugene has a newspaper, the Register-Guard. there is also a local "alternative" newspaper called the Eugene Weekly. check out their web sites with regularity and you might get a better flavor of what you are looking for. the Eugene Weekly is the one most on top of investigating graft and corruption in the area - it is actually the only newspaper in town that i will read - and basically, the only one i respect.

[archytype]

and if the things you mentioned in your post are your interests, biking etc. Then the U of O will be a blast for you. I grew up in a nearby town and attended the University and wouldn't change a thing. Frat life is limited and most people really into that sort of thing attend OSU (no offense, but Greek Life is bigger there). The sports programs are very big but not overwhelming and actually you'll find that a lot of folks in the 'alternative' crowd enjoy them. Although in Eugene the 'alternative' folks are the majority. I stopped reading the ramblings of the negative posts, so they didn't like Eugene or the U of O then why on Earth are they on this forum flaming it, move on? Best of luck, I graduated in '99 and if you want any more ?'s answered more directly just send me a message....

[florigidge]

Originally Posted by archytype

and if the things you mentioned in your post are your interests, biking etc. Then the U of O will be a blast for you. I grew up in a nearby town and attended the University and wouldn't change a thing. Frat life is limited and most people really into that sort of thing attend OSU (no offense, but Greek Life is bigger there). The sports programs are very big but not overwhelming and actually you'll find that a lot of folks in the 'alternative' crowd enjoy them. Although in Eugene the 'alternative' folks are the majority. I stopped reading the ramblings of the negative posts, so they didn't like Eugene or the U of O then why on Earth are they on this forum flaming it, move on? Best of luck, I graduated in '99 and if you want any more ?'s answered more directly just send me a message....

i attended one year from Sept 2003 - to - June 2004. my opinions are as valid as yours, though if you did indeed read my posts you will see i qualify them because as a grad student i didn't have time for a lot of socialization. but that still doesn't mean i was blind to what was going on around me and that my experiences (I STILL LIVE HERE) with students, faculty, staff, citizens, etc. aren't valid.

he asked anyone to comment. so i did. just like you did. i also, again if you actually read my posts, told him that all of the things he mentioned COULD be found on campus or in the city but that it was his responsibility to check them out; no one comes knocking on your door with a laundry list of organizations or interests and says "pick one and come join us." your own initiative will determine who you hang out with.