The good and the bad from a transfer student

Introduction
My biggest advice in considering this school is find a graduate from your school who went here and ask their view. I don't know what kind of place you are coming from, so it's best to get an opinion from someone that was in the same situation as you are now.

I chose KU because I am majoring in Political Science and the program here is rated among the top in the country (the only major competitor is Harvard; the only one that ever beats KU is them) and also because the campus is beautiful.

I would say if someone was afraid of large groups or a more shy person, KU may not be the best bet. With 30,000 undergraduate students and 10,000+ graduate students, it's easy to feel insignificant and melt into the background.

Campus Life and Social Life
The hardest thing for new students is figuring out what's going on. Facebook.com is a great way to keep in touch with people and events, whether that be parties, meetings, or whatever. Lots of stuff about what's going on is on facebook.

I'm a transfer student and when I came here, I was all by myself and I didn't know a single person. I live off campus in a single apartment by myself, so that made it really hard to meet people. It just takes some effort to get into a group of people that you fit in with. The best way to meet people is to either live in the dorms or towers (on-campus apartments) or rush a sorority or fraternity. I'm not in the Greek circle, but if you want to meet a lot of people in a short amount of time, that's a great way to do it. You don't have to join one of the houses after rushing, so if you just want to meet people you could do that and then just pass on any offers that you might recieve to join.

Another way to meet people is to just look on the school's Web site for a list of clubs and activities or watch the sidewalks for ads about groups' meetings. If you find one that sounds interesting, just go and see if you like it. I'm a member of Campus Crusade for Christ and BRASA (Brazilian/American Student Association) and all the people in both groups are very welcoming as well as any other group you might go to.

Weekends are pretty typical of a college town, Mass. Street is famous, mostly because that's where all of the shops, bars, resaurants, ect. are located. There are a lot of parties here if that's what you are interested in, but there are housing locations that don't allow parties (mine even states a certain decible range that is acceptable). Advertisement
Academics
The biggest problem with KU is the size, but it's also the biggest benefit. The benefits are that there is a program/major for just about everything. I'm majoring in Political Science and History focusing on Latin America, ancient Rome, and China, while studying Portuguese; not too many other places would let you be that specific.

Most often it's a little overwhelming for new students because the lower level classes are sometimes pretty large. I've had classes that are very small though, too, especially when you get into your program of study. I've had classes as small as 12, and as large as 1,500. Most often the classes average around 30-40 people (don't let some tour guide tell you otherwise, I've been on one of those tours and they don't like to tell you because it scares the parents and the students away). People here that you will talk to will try to tell you that you will only have maybe one or two classes in one of the big auditoriums, not true. This semester, excluding my Portuguese class, my smallest class is about 60 and my largest around 700.

The large classes do have what is called discussion questions. A professor lectures two days a week and the discussion day is taught by a graduate student, a graduate teacher's assistant. These discussion classes are what can make you or break you in a class. If your GTA is good, you'll do well, if he/she is not, then you may have some problems.

Students coming in usually think that if they have a big class then there won't be any attendence taken or pop quizzes, not true at KU. KU has what is called "clicker courses." These courses are usually in the large auditoriums and it uses a system where all the students have a radio transmitting "clicker." This allows the professor to give pop quizzes and take attendance so that students are more accountable and it allows a little more interaction. I like them because usually if you don't understand something, about a third of the rest of the class is in the same boat. This allows the professor to look at where some of the people in class are having problems and explain it in another way. It usually allows some time for questions as well. It kind of breaks up the monotony of a full hour of lecture.

People ask if the professors are the ones who actually teach the classes. In many cases this is true, but there are about 30% of the classes that are taught by graduate students working towards a masters degree. They have a professor that will oversee the class, and most of the time these grads do a really good job. I don't mind them because it's nice to have someone in a similar situation as you giving you homework. They don't like to do a whole lot of grading when they have midterms or homework, so sometimes the classwork is a little less stressful when you need it to be, but there are always some exceptions to the rule.

As far as departments go, I've not heard of any being really bad. I do know that the atmospheric science department is the hardest at this university. Of course our school of medicine is excellent, our law school is in the top 10% of the nation and our political science department is also one of the best in the country as previously stated. There is an amazing anthropology department and the women's studies are also very popular. I have heard that the journalism department's workload is pretty stiff, and I know that the poli-sci department is pretty demanding.

The workload obviously depends on which department you go into to. The history department obviously does have quite a bit of reading, but the university as a whole does not allow more than 100 pages of reading assigned per class for the undergraduates. The English department is even more strict and doesn't allow more than 50 assigned pages for weekdays and 100 pages for a weekend. Many of the teachers in other departments follow along with what the English department does. The sciences will have some heafty lab requirements as far as homework and the liberal arts will have more reading. The engineering school is sort of in between. The school of business is pretty heavy when it comes to homework, less major papers, but more homework than the other colleges.

Student Body
There isn't just one "typical student" here at KU. Most of the students are from the midwest, particularly Kansas and Oklahoma, but there are a lot of students from all of the other states. We get lots of people from Alaska, Washington, Missouri, and Colorado. Most of the students and faculty here are pretty liberal and the students do like to demonstrate and protest a lot.

A lot of people here have quite a bit of money, I'm not one of them, but there are a lot of very expensive, nice cars here. The average year of cars at KU is about 2000 (as of 2005), so there are a lot of people who can afford to come here very comfortably.

Most of the students here do like to party on the weekends, and still a considerable amount during the week. Sports are really important here, especially basketball of course and tickets are almost impossible to get and a seat at the game even more so if you do have tickets; but the football team is doing very well this year and it's much easier to get into one of those games. Soccer, volleyball, women's basketball, rugby, lacrosse, and some of the other smaller sports are free if you have a student ID, and usually you can get a very good seat.

There are a lot of smokers on campus. In a group walking between classes it's not uncommon to see about half or more smoking, I don't know why, but there are. There are a lot of transfer students, non-traditionals, older students, and continuing education people here too.

All walks of life are represented here and there's a group of people for everyone; jocks, hippies, academics, musicians, you name there is a good number of them here.

In Closing...
You really need to be aware of where you are and what you are doing. It's pretty safe overall, but there are a lot of things that can happen. The police patrol campus 24/7, but they're not everywhere all the time. Girls, don't go anywhere by yourself. There are programs like Safe-Walk in the evenings and such, but you still need to be careful.

There is a bus system that goes around campus and to the major apartment complexes and hubs where most students live, if you are looking for an off-campus place, make sure that it's on the bus route because Lawrence has a lot of hills and it can get very icy and snowy in Kansas sometimes. Plus, a bus pass is only $70 per semester whereas a parking pass is around $150 per semester not counting the cost of gas, the possible insurance jumps if you get in a wreck on campus, and irritation trying to find parking. The university always sells more parking permits than there are parking places, even in the dorm lots and you are not allowed to drive through campus during the day because there are too many students walking around. I really recommend the bus because sometimes you just don't feel good and it's nice to catch a bus between classes rather than walking all the time.