West Virginia University | Student Reviews | Best College

Student Profile

Jackie

Class: Junior
Major: Biology
Gender: F

High School: Hamburg High School, NY
Transfer Student: N

Big Picture

The best thing about WVU is that it is a large school that can also feel small. It can feel large in a chemistry class of 200 students. But it feels small because on your way to class you can run into at least 20 people that you know. There is always someone new for you to meet, and therefore things never get boring. When I tell people I go to WVU, the first thing they think of are the awesome Mountaineer sports we have. Everyone loves the fact that not only does our football team do really well, but our basketball, and soccer do good as well. Everyone can appreciate the Mountaineers because we were always the underdog and now we have started to excell. The games are all really fun and the atmosphere is great! The college town is really nice. Everything you could need is in walking distance or can be gotten to through the PRT (Personal Rapid Transit). If you want to bring your car though make sure you have a place to park it because space is extremely limited, and parking tickets are a ****.

Academic Life

The academics here are pretty strong. I've been pretty limited to science based classes, but the physics department and the chemistry department are very strong. The freshman biology teachers are a little weak and if you aren't dedicated can very easily make you decide to choose another major (I'm not always sure this is a bad thing). I'm also in the honors college and have found all of my honors classes to be really good. The teachers have be excellent and really taught their respective subjects well. My honors classes have been ranging from Biology to history to an ecology movie class. Students really aren't that competitive here, so it's really easy to ask a classmate for help. There is also something known as the first year experience for freshmen which is a tutoring center in certain dorms where you can go and speak to upperclassmen if you're having trouble in a class. Also, if you're having trouble in class there are many resources you can take advantage of even if you aren't a freshman. There is a chemistry learning center run by ACS students, as well as many professors are very easy to get ahold of for help.

Student Body

There are a LOT of different types of people that attend WVU. There are many religious, racial, academic, and political groups at the school. I don't mean racial in a mean way either. There are different groups for african american females, I believe there is one for latinos, and so on. I'm not really affiliated with many different groups so I'm not exactly sure about all of them, but Student Organizations makes it very easy to contact anyone you're interested in. Most WVU students come from WV due to the promise scholarship. This scholarship awards a free education for those WV residents who reach a certain ACT score and a 3.0 GPA. There are many low income families in West Virginia and this scholarship is aimed at students who may not be able to afford college the ability to attend. It's a great idea in theory, but has found not to increase graduates from WV any more than before it was implemented.