<p>@AtomicCafe & other students who have answered-</p>
<p>Thanks for starting this thread and answering questions!</p>
<p>My questions are mainly:</p>
<p>1) What’s student life like? You mentioned that those who aren’t into the whole drinking & partying scene don’t have anything to do on the weekends. NOTHING? at all?? I’m really not into the whole party scene, but I still want something to do.</p>
<p>2) How is Tucson as far as safety and traffic? I hear so many complaints about Tucson being a “ghetto” and full of crime. And that the traffic is awful. As a college student who doesn’t venture too far from campus, does that stuff really matter? Or does the campus have its own environment, different from the rest of Tucson?</p>
<p>1) I’m sure there’s <em>something</em> to do around here on the weekends…outdoors stuff maybe. I just don’t do anything but sleep, videogame, and study on the weekends so I can’t help all that much with this question. Engineering made me anti-social and tired haha. EDIT: I remembered something about the downtown district being a hang-out spot.
2) Tucson generally has an old feel to it. Roads are cracked (and plowed), there’s stores that have been around since the 60s, etc etc. I came from a mega-metro city so I’m used to everything being new. There’s some parts of Tucson that are ghetto/high crime…like the south side around the airport for example, but on campus and immediately around campus it’s a mini-ecosystem. I’ve been on the mall at 3 AM before and it’s not like bands of thugs are roaming around; and campus PD usually cleans up homeless people.</p>
<p>Campus does feel sketchy at night because they don’t use many lights (observatory light pollution restrictions), but I’ve never had any heart-pounding i’m about to die moments.</p>
<p>Now excuse me while I continue cramming for a final ;)</p>
<p>@ckr4282 Wish I could tell you. I avoid Union stores cause they charge insanely inflated prices (ala airport pricing) on just about everything convenience. I’ll check it out in a few weeks though when I’m back on campus since my interest has been piqued.</p>
<p>i got into the u of a honors college, and since im in state, it would be basically free. But i really want to go to ut austin. I know that in general, ut is a better school (i dont know if the honors college at u of a makes it any better, though?). Any thoughts on if the cost difference is worth it? i also really want a change, so the idea of going out of state really appeals to me. any opinions!?</p>
<p>In terms of prestige, they’re both close enough that it doesn’t really matter, although I’m sure I could find people that would argue to the death over it. What was a turn off for me from UT schools is they’re massively overcrowded. Isn’t UT Austin something like 60k people? Massive enrollments might make a lot of companies recruit there, but it also makes it near impossible to stand out from a crowd and get hired.</p>
<p>If it were me, I’d go with the value of UA. Life is also a lot easier when you’re permanent residence isn’t 800 miles away from where you’re studying; you can have 40 years to move all over the country, after you graduate.</p>
<p>In general, what do you think about the engineering program here? Specifically Civil Engineering? In terms of professors, opportunities, prestige, availability of jobs?</p>
<p>Also, when I was doing the application, I noticed that they didn’t have Civil Engineering, only General Engineering. Is general engineering what all engineering students go into initially before declaring a certain type?</p>
<p>Also, what are the dorms like? Do you feel a general sense of welcoming and kinship on your floor?</p>
<p>Lastly, is having a bike on campus common / useful?</p>
<p>Sorry for the onslaught of questions! Haha I recently found out that I can get tuition fully paid for (plus an IPad!) since I’m a national hispanic scholar, so I’m trying to gather as much info as I can (I’ve never been to Arizona!).</p>
<p>When will i be able to do a roommate request form? The only one they have online is for the 2010-2011 school year… I’ve already filled out my housing application form and paid my deposit and listed my dorm preferences, but i haven’t requested my roommate…</p>
<p>-I can’t comment specifically on Civil, since I’m electrical. In our department the professors have been pretty good. I also think it’s fairly standardized around engineering to not give professors tenure until they’ve been there for a long time and get positive ratings from students, so that probably increases the quality.</p>
<p>-Jobs is a tricky one. Tucson is an old city, so there’s not much economic activity from what I’ve seen. Phoenix is really where it’s at, but on the same coin companies come from phoenix to interview at UA.</p>
<p>-No, you don’t have to do “pre engineering” or anything. I was electrical from my first semester. Might want to call the engineering college admin office and see what’s going on with that. Maybe they combined civil with another one and call it something else but that would be unlikely since civil is popular.</p>
<p>-Dorms I think a lot of people meet their core friend group. I was left alone, which is what I wanted anyways.</p>
<p>-Yes having a bike is extremely useful. The campus is compact but still big enough that it’s a long walk from one corner of campus to the other. If you do bring a bike bring the cheapest one you can, cause the valuable ones do get stolen (some idiot brought a $2000 carbon fiber hyper racing bike and it was stolen).</p>
<h2>- The ipad thing is actually a trick. They were offering more cash last year than they are this year, but trying to hide it by waving around an ipad worth less than the difference (and I’m sure Apple gives them away to schools for free for advertising).</h2>
<p>On to texas 011:</p>
<p>As the ResLife site says, you have until summer to pick your roommate prefs, so I wouldn’t worry yet about the 2012 form being MIA. I’m looking at the emails I got from back in 2008. April 4th I got a “Notice of Campus Housing Assignment” that just said Babcock Double. May 23rd I got “Make Sure Everything is Accurate Online” email that pointed to this address (which looks like it still works): <a href=“http://www.life.arizona.edu/webmodule/[/url]”>http://www.life.arizona.edu/webmodule/</a> . July 17th I got my actual room and roommate assignment notice.</p>
<p>So I would poke around UAccess’s “Housing” section and the link above and see if there’s any options for selecting roommate.</p>
<p>Just wanted to post on here that I graduate from the U of Arizona this past May as a business management student in Eller who was also part of the honors college. I was in a fraternity and lived the “U of Arizona” life, while still doing very well in school so to everyone out there it is definitely possible if you pick the right major. Through private message I can help you about any questions you may have regarding dorms, fraternities, campus life, honors college, Eller, living off campus, etc… I may check this post every so often so you could reply directly to this message, but if you send me a private message I would probably get it a lot faster. Hope to hear from you soon.</p>
<p>Sorry on advance for all my questions. I am pretty sure I want to got the u of a and just wanted to get a few questions answered.</p>
<p>1) what has anyone heard about the new honors dorms that were just built?
2) what kind if bike would you recommend for riding around campus?
3) what are some of the reputations for the different frats? I am very intersted in Greek life but do not want to be in a frat that is very small but also not a frat that has a reputation of trouble. My brother is in delta tau delta at Oklahoma and my father was a pike at Iowa and both pf these are at UA and I think it would be cool to be in one of them so also, what is the general reputation of both of those? Thank you so much.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t recommend riding any bike around campus, it’s way too crowded during the day. Although if you plan to live off campus, it’s pretty useful. </p>
<p>@MOswimmer…haven’t heard anything beyond the official info.</p>
<p>-I would bring the cheapest bike you’re willing to have stolen. The bike I brought is a 10 year old 24 inch mountain bike that my parents were going to give to Goodwill anyways, so I won’t cry if it gets stolen. I suggest something with a suspension (or seat sushion at the least) though if you’re going to be using any of the roads around campus (1st, 2nd, 4th) because some I’ve nicknamed “ass-rape alley”. If you have a choice, pick something with wide smooth tires or hybrid road/trail tires.</p>
<p>Contrary to what walateral has said I don’t think it’s that crowded. First few weeks of classes you have to deal with a lot of idiot freshman pedestrians, but other than that it’s like driving a car through traffic. I’m used to weaving between pedestrians, anticipating other bikes, making left turns into vehicle traffic etc etc while going up and down my gears. If you get scared or whatever just stick to the right, go slow, and point before you make turns to let other bikes know not to pass you right when you’re turning.</p>
<p>Oh and wear a helmet. It’s not high school, no one cares how cool you looked before dying.</p>
<p>so if i got into honors, but the girl im wanting to room with didnt, can we not stay in honors? or is there any way to get us into the honors dorm? thanks!</p>
<p>@texas011 I don’t remember reading any specific rules saying you both have to be honors, but if I were guessing they’d default to “for honors students only”. I know at another public univ you can be an undergrad and live in grad housing if you’re a sublease to a grad student, but since UA doesn’t run on leases you’d be taking a shot in the dark asking reslife to make an exception.</p>
<p>I JUST submitted my application for an Architecture major (my interest in UA didn’t happen til very recently haha). About how soon will I hear back, and how much of a chance do I stand at getting the residence hall of my choice? I REALLY want Manzanita lol.</p>
<p>Also, since on their scholarship website it says National Hispanic Scholars get a full ride, I’m guaranteed acceptance right? Sounds stupid but i just want to make sure lol. I indicated it on my app but I’m still worried.</p>
<p>@toohopeful. No idea when you’ll hear back, but as is good practice, give it some time. Manzanita is so unpopular that I didn’t even know it existed until I looked it up just now, so I’m guessing it’s not going to be difficult for you to get into.</p>
<p>I’m assuming that if you qualify as NHS you’d have to have at least decent stats, so unless you somehow aced the PSAT and failed every class, I don’t think acceptance will be a problem.</p>
<p>Side rant: I still don’t get why colleges put so much weight on the national XXX scholar results. “You got a 4.9 in high school, 2400 on your SAT, valedictorian, class president, a million hours of community service… but we’ll give more money to the kid who happened to get national merit scholar”…sigh.</p>