My thoughts may not be the best as I went to Pitt Bradford from 1991 to 1996 and I'm sure some things have changed with the overall picture. Back then freshmen could have cars. There isn't much to do in town. There was a small movie theater and not much else unless you want to frequent one of their 15 bars. The town's residents weren't very friendly toward college students. I worked there for a summer and got to see first hand how deprived the area was and encountered many angry/mean people. The town has a high level of incest which I believe is documented. I didn't enjoy my time in the town and still kick myself for not transferring to Pitt Main after my sophmore year. Get ready for a ton of snow during the winter which lasts long. Bradford always gets much more snow than mid pa because of the lake effect. They would only cancel classes for commuters when bad snow storms hit (which seemed often).
However they have made improvements to the townhouses (which were dumps to live when I was there), now have a bigger gym with a pool, and have a baseball team (I would have played if they had a team when I was there). Classes were usually small back then and it wasn't hard for your professors to know you although some really didn't seem to enjoy hands on teaching (but many did). I'm glad to see Dr. Lawson is still there as she was a wonderful professor and learned a ton from her. Plus she was a genuinely nice person and have tons of respect for her.
I was a PR major and they had an outstanding head of the department but he left after my freshman year. We then got two professors who weren't very good at teaching. My senior year I had an internship that was passed around to six different people until somebody took the duties of running it. This person did not seem to care much for the duties and made my life hell. I also had a very hard sociology class that semester where the professor was very combative and had difficulties with her. Nobody seemed to care about my difficulties although I had good grades and never had any problems before. I became an emotional mess because of it. This all involved I dropped out of my last semester and finished my last remaining nine credits elsewhere. They were quite difficult when I wanted to finish elsewhere and made me get a letter from my employer stating I couldn't relocate back there because of working with emotionally troubled youth who don't do well with change. They seemed more concerned about getting my money instead of thinking of my professional career (and this after I didn't enjoy how I was treated my last semester there).
So yeah I have some sour grapes but think some of it was justified. I don't believe I received a top notch education while I was there although I did many extra things like worked at the newspaper, radio station, and computer labs. I hardly ever missed classes and took my studies seriously. If I could do it all over again I would have attended an university elsewhere. Just one person's viewpoint though
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University of Pittsburgh and Pitt - Bradford
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