Any questions for a current student?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Washington
41

<p>Hi FlavsItaly,</p>

<p>Welcome to Seattle!</p>

<p>I am currently not a student at UW but I have seen enough of UW to offer these comments:</p>

<p>[ul]
[<em>]Do you think that it’s easy for foreigners to relate with American students?
Yes, it should be. Besides, UW has a large student body with many many international students from all over the world.
[</em>] Do they usually hang out by theirselves or get along with people outside their national group?
I am sure you will find enough people with common interest to hang out with. People in [url=<a href=“http://iss.washington.edu/]ISS[/url”>http://iss.washington.edu/]ISS[/url</a>] should be able to help you with this as well.
[/ul]
I don’t know much about living arrangements and meal plans.</p>

<p>Hope this helps.</p>

42

<p>Thank you Maxxwell!</p>

<p>You know, I would be totally fine with being the only Italian on campus!! At least I can get to know a lot more people!</p>

<p>Can’t wait to be (back) in Seattle!! I love it!</p>

43

<p>

</p>

<p>They are quite good overall, I think. Sometimes the classes are large but if you make the effort, by going to office hours or whatever, you can get whatever help you need. I have heard that UW also has really good tutoring & paper revision stuff available, but I haven’t used that yet. UW is a research institution and I have found that sometimes some professors seem like they would rather be out researching than teaching the students. But overall everyone I have encountered has been pretty nice.</p>

<p>The work is pretty challenging. Right now I have a 3.75 GPA. It’s harder to get a good grade…for example in one of my classes, you could miss one question on one of the homeworks (out of four total homework assignments) and one question on a test before you can’t get a 4.0 anymore. So it’s not like high school where there is a lot of extra credit, etc. available. But I think that level is pretty standard in college, not just UW. I am having my first encounter with “grades on a curve” this quarter so we will see how that goes.</p>

<p>One thing I am really happy with is just the huge variety of classes offered. For a while I considered going to a smaller school like Whitman but the variety of classes was one of the main things that led me to choose UW instead. I feel like I have the chance to take really cool stuff that just wouldn’t be offered at a smaller school. I would really encourage you to check out the time schedule if you haven’t already, just to see what is available.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Hmm, this really isn’t my huge area of expertise, but from what I know foreign exchange students seem to get along really well with everybody and have a good time. A friend of mine started dating an exchange student from Australia and now they are engaged. I’ve met a couple of international students in some of my classes and they seem to get along fine with everyone. I think UW has international student housing that you can get (although I think a majority of these students will be from Asian countries).</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>No, you can’t get a meal plan unless you live on campus. However, you can still eat on campus — what you would do is put money on your Husky Card. Check out this website for more information. [UW</a> Housing and Food Services > Husky Card](<a href=“Housing & Food Services - UW HFS”>Housing & Food Services - UW HFS)</p>

44

<p>^^thank you for the info. I’m pretty excited about udub, however, i just read maxxwell’s
link regarding the intro bio. class with 700 students. “Yikes!!” i thought a class of 200 was large enough.</p>

<p>I plan to major in biology. my question: do i need to take intro. biology?
I took : AP Biology A,A
AP Bio. 5
SAT II Bio: 750</p>

<p>Also, are you doing any research stuff, or feel that their is plenty of opportunity?
Where do you want to go to grad school?</p>

<p>Still considering Western Washington Bellingham: was accepted into their honor’s program. I’ll be visiting this campus next month and revisiting udub (love udub campus and seattle).</p>

<p>I think you’re doing great. 3.75 gpa is pretty darn awesome! thanks again, you are very helpful and nice to be doing this.</p>

45

<p>

</p>

<p>I read that article too. However I thought it was pretty misleading. I am actually quite pleased with the way the Biology department has handled the budget cuts (I believe they had their funding cut by almost 20%?). I think they managed it really well without cutting hardly any upper-level stuff.</p>

<p>The article makes it sound like all of a sudden classes are huge…Intro to Biology (Biol 180) has been large for several years — 700 is not a new number. The class size has always been 700 for autumn quarter…however it used to be 400 for winter & spring quarters. Now it is 700 for all three quarters (PS that is the largest class you will ever take at UW as a science major…the next two quarters of Biol have, I think, 400 and 300, respectively). What they did was take away the introductory biology course designed for non-science majors (Biol 161) so now they just offer 180, and they have made the class bigger during winter & spring to compensate and allow for more students.</p>

<p>700 sounds like a lot, and I know what you are thinking, but honestly once a class is big, say 300-400, more doesn’t really make a difference. I have had some big classes and I just sit up in the front rows and I hardly even notice all the people. It’s true that you can’t really raise your hand much and ask for things to be repeated, but I think UW tries to allow for that at other times — when you have a big class you will usually have a quiz section where basically you are split up into a smaller class (roughly 25-30) and you go to that class once a week and the TA basically asks, okay, what are your questions? So although it’s tough to ask questions during the big class, there is an opportunity later on. And there is tutoring and that kind of thing too.</p>

<p>Smaller class sizes are great, and I was heavily leaning toward going to a smaller school, I actually applied EA to an LAC (and got accepted), but honestly I can say the bigger classes at UW haven’t really been the issue that I thought they would be. You can still definitely get extra help if you want it.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Yes, you will need to take introductory biology. With your AP credits, you will get credit for Biol 161 & 162…which don’t exist anymore. So that credit is pretty much useless now. Even when those classes did exist, it’s Biol 180, 200, 220 (the sequence for science majors) that are the prerequisites for all the upper level stuff. I really wish I didn’t even send my AP Bio score to UW because I have the useless credit, which counts toward the lifetime maximum for Satisfactory Academic Progress. Something to look into.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>I haven’t done any research yet, but I do think there are a lot of opportunities. Once you get to upper level biology stuff, the professors that teach those classes usually have several research projects going and they are pretty eager to have their students help.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>I want to do epidemiology, but I really haven’t decided where yet. I am just trying to keep my grades high to keep my options open for now.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Thanks!</p>

46

<p>^^^Thanks again for the informative answer. I still love udub and seattle. I’ll be visiting again next month and I hope to sit in one of these large lectures. Another question, as I always have them. Are you finding that you are able to get the classes that you want and need to graduate in four years?</p>

47

<p>What is the lifetime maximum for Satisfactory Academic Progress? So is there a maximum number of credits you can take/have at UW?</p>

<p>Thanks!</p>

48

<p>I have applied UW in the way of EA, but there has been no any news from the UW. I suppose my application has been put in RD, while do you when I can know their final decision. Waiting time can make people to half die. Thanks in advance.</p>

49

<p>As far as I know there is no EA at UW. They have rolling admissions. Those who applied before Dec 1st started getting their decisions earlier. That’s all.</p>

50

<p>how close is the campus to the city? </p>

<p>how often do students visit the city? (:</p>

<p>are there fun things to do on campus? </p>

<p>… is the “seattle freeze” real…</p>

51

<p>@sunnybaNANA I’ll try to answer some of the questions:</p>

<p>how close is the campus to the city?
Seattle city center is about 3 to 4 miles from the campus depending on the route. It is neither too close nor too far. I understand that bus service is decent. </p>

<p>how often do students visit the city? (:
I don’t know. But, you don’t have to go to the city for shopping at all. There is University Village Shopping Center. It is walkable distance if you live on the northern side of the campus. Probably a current student could give a better picture. There are several good restaurants close by as well.</p>

52

<p>It’s about 5-20 min. by bus downtown, depending on if you catch an express or not. Really easy to get there, i know people who go pretty much every day.</p>

53

<p>^^ Is Pike Place where downtown is? How often and about what time is the last bus back to udub?</p>

54

<p>Gimmel, I’m not sure when the last bus is back to UW every day, but I am familiar with the 43/48 as well as 70s bus routes, since I take some of those buses home from school every day. If you plan to hop on one of the buses I mentioned (I’m not sure about the other buses), you will have about a 5-10 minute wait between each bus. Some of the buses go the same path for more than 15 minutes, which is nice if you missed a bus and have to only wait another 2 minutes instead of 10. The bus system is very convenient for me as a way to get home every day, since I don’t have a car.</p>

55

<p>Pike Place is downtown.</p>

<p>The last bus is past midnight on weekdays, and around midnight on weekends. Saturdays and Sundays seems to be less frequent, like every 30 min. or so later in the night.</p>

56

<p>^^Thanks, BubbleTeaChibi !! </p>

<p>It must be fun living in a city like Seattle! Hardly anyone walks or uses public transportation in the SoCal suburbs. </p>

<p>I hope I get into honors, it will make me feel better about paying the OOS tuition. Still so happy to be accepted! </p>

<p>Hope to see you, but I still have to wait for the UC decisions. I wish I didn’t have to worry about the OOS tuition. sorry to ramble…it will all work out…</p>

57

<p>^^Hi Spaceneedle! Thanks!!</p>

58

<p>@gimmel "Hardly anyone walks or uses public transportation in the SoCal suburbs. "</p>

<p>This is true of most suburbs in this country including Seattle.</p>

59

<p>@Maxxwell & Gimmel - we have a lot of people with private cars, but depending on the time (rush hour, after school, etc) a good amount of people use public transportation too. One of my buses is always packed full and a lot of people just stand, but another is almost completely empty every day.</p>

60

<p>Hello UW student. Do any students own cars? How about bikes or skateboards? What is the most popular mode of transportation on campus? Oh, I read from a previous post that the AP Biology credits are useless now. Do you recommend taking the test if the credit is no good?</p>