Student Profile
Dltprm
- Class: Senior
- Major: Biology
- Gender: M
- High School: Webster NY
- Transfer Student: N
Big Picture
Rochester is a very unique city. It has a variety of things that you can do. There are clubs, bars, concert halls (classic and rock), historical things, nature trails, and so on and so forth. Basically if you wanted to get off campus and do something you should be able to find something to do. It's not a tiny city so big things like bands and big name performances do stop by in the town. It's not huge so you don't really have to worry about traffic or driving hours on ends to get from one side of the city to the other. I personally thing it's a nice balance of city / suburb / and rural. UR is fairly self sufficient. We have our own bus system a mini-store to buy groceries and that sort of things and various programs on campus throughout there year to entertain yourself. UR is expanding quickly, but as of now there is no defined college town. However plans have been drawn up to expand UR by twice or three times its current size and will occupy a larger portion of the area. The biggest issue at Rochester that, truly, affects UR undergraduates is the meal plan system. It recently has been tweaked so that you choose your meal plan based on your current dormitory. They say the calculation is based on the number of people using a single kitchen in a wing of a dormitory and the higher the number the more likely you will be using campus dining rather than you cooking yourself. This fundamentally screws up many upperclassman (and freshman) who live dorms on the residential quad as well as those who live in the freshman dormitory (Susan B. Anthony). Upperclassman who have volunteered their services to the university serving as Residential advisers (they're actually paid), Freshman Fellows (basically they are on hall academic support, unpaid), and D'lions (Upperclassman that live in the freshman building and help keep hall spirit up / provide events to keep people entertained and engaged in the university and Rochester community, also unpaid) are screwed over because previously they would have had meal plans that were much cheaper due to their upperclassman status. But now they must use the most expensive meal plan on campus. Also, and ironically enough, the hospital food (which you can use campus currency with) is better than many of the campus sites. If you like sports, UR isn't a bad place to be either. Unless you like football. we do have a reputation for losing at that particular sport very frequently. One last thing about Rochester, that I guess you have to talk about when you're looking into colleges. That is, of course, Alcohol. If you want to drink there are plenty of opportunities to, and if you don't you don't really have to and there are just as many people who don't drink / party like that. So like the weather, it's what you choose that will affect whether or not you like the atmosphere about that.
Academic Life
The academics here are tough, but manageable. Again depending on your goals / major will greatly affect your experiences here. In the biological sciences it is a challenging experience with many opportunities to expand yourself beyond the courses. I say this because there are ample opportunities to work in a lab that suits your interests. The undergraduate department is very mixed in with the graduate departments both at the River campus (the main undergraduate campus) and at the UR Medical center and Strong memorial hospital (medical / biomedical research). Also when you enter your junior year (or earlier if you're special ;] ) you start taking classes that first year graduate students also take. The nature of the course changes from buying textbooks and memorizing all the details to looking at original papers and studying them in depth. You learn about how experiments are performed and how they have shaped the course of modern biological sciences. So the experience is really two fold, you get the academic knowledge of the results of the experiments but also the practical knowledge of how the experiments were done. Professors are usually trying to keep the class interesting and try to offer classes that are interesting to them and the student body. I actually am a double major in Economics and Microbiology + Immunology (that's actually one major), so I have taken a few classes that have bridged my interests. For example, Health Policies, which is an economics course geared at looking at the financial structure and economic consequences of the modern health care system. By the end of the course we had a discussion as to the benefits and costs of the current US health care system in comparison to other nations. On the biology side of things there are several new courses that are interesting such as "Biology of Aging" and "Biochemical differences between Male and Females." Now getting to know your professors is really up to you. A majority of the professors that I have met are really approachable and are genuinely trying to help you learn. Plus there's a plethora of additional academic support if it's needed. You'll probably hear this from the UR people, but the curriculum at UR isn't as rigid as most schools. The only real mandatory class is the freshman writing seminar, but with good enough English credentials you can usually opt out of it. The cluster system at UR is a way to allow students to try other courses to see if they have any interest in that area. There are three clusters to satisfy: Natural Science (Math..bio...chem...etc), Social Sciences (Economics, Political Science, psychology...etc) and Humanities (Art, Music, Literature, etc) For example I am a Microbiology + Immunology major (satisfies my Natural science "cluster"), Economics major (satisfies my social science cluster). So I need a cluster in humanities. In my case I take music classes which continues my long standing musical interest. Good times.
Student Body
Diverse. Let's just say that. You'll get a speech about it if you come here to visit from one of the dean's. He'll tell you all about the diverseness. Basically he picks the students with the most ridiculous background story and tells them to you. Usually it boils down to... # of people from various continents / nations That special person who has a company already That person who had no money but got 50 scholarships and now has a free ride # of people who do a particular sport...etc etc. It goes on. It's interesting though. Everyone is usually pretty nice to each other. Despite what seems to be a "liberal" education, it's pretty well balanced here and everyone for the most part is respectful. I say "liberal" because usually the big outbursts of protests tend to come from the left and not the right. Which, personally, bothers me just as much but it's a nice change from what I usually see on TV (maybe because I don't watch Fox news =P)
The Best Things
Everything else
The Worst Things
Meal plan
