<p>I currently follow a message board from another school that my son was seriously considering and there has been an active discussion about the inability to understand many of the professors. I am sure this is an issue at some level at most schools, but I am wondering how prevalent this issue is a UA. </p>
<p>Have you heard complaints from your kids about not being able to understand professors at UA?</p>
<p>my daughter hasn’t complained about this one bit. i know she has had some asian profs for her math classes, but she hasn’t complained about not being able to understand them.</p>
<p>I, too, have been curious about this, but not at UA. This will sound very politically incorrect and prejudice, but you can go look at faculty profiles. Knowing where someone themselves went to school to get to become a professor in the first place is sometimes helpful. Many/most at UA seem to come out of USA schools, or English-speaking foreign countries/schools…much more so than I can say about other eng schools’ faculty we have looked at.
Or did you mean the SOUTHERN accent is difficult to understand?! 
JK…</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>Very, very, very few profs have southern accents since many aren’t from the south. </p>
<p>( That said, many southerners from the cities don’t have much of a southern accent either…frankly, many don’t have a southern accent at all because of the influences of television.)</p>
<p>As for foreign-born profs… In the Dark Ages when I went to college, it wasn’t unusual to have a STEM prof with a heavy accent that was hard to understand. That doesn’t seem to be the case anymore…I think that’s largely because foreign-born educated people are learning English from a young age and/or got their PhDs or post-docs here in the US where they “fine-tuned” their speech.</p>
<p>My son took an Ochem class from a newly-hired Italian prof whose US education was limited to his post-doc at UTexas. His English is excellent…even tho he had only been in the US for a few years. </p>
<p>BTW…that prof is excellent, so anyone needing a good Ochem prof, take Dr. Marco Bonizzoni… BS, 2003, Universit</p>
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<p>I have told my son that he will need to learn to speak slower, and listen slower without becoming impatient. He and I both speak very quick east coast style!!</p>
<p>I’ve heard this complaint a few times in recent years, mostly with math professors.</p>
<p>And, yeah, the southern accent is definitely less apparent on campus. And not necessarily slow. ;)</p>
<p>He and I both speak very quick east coast style!!</p>
<p>the males in my family speak Mumblish.</p>
<p>*a few times in recent years, mostly with math professors.
*</p>
<p>I asked my math son about this and he said that Dr. Vo Liem has a strong accent, but the others with accents aren’t hard to understand.</p>
<p>Of course, Dr. Hadji does have an accent, but he’s not hard to understand…however, his ways aren’t your typical American ways…if you answer a question wrong, he’ll say (in a slow accented tone): “I’ll give you a minute to realize how wrong you are.” Oh my! lol</p>
<p>^^^Oh, crud! Son has Hadji for Dif Eq this semester!</p>
<p>Now, son did have Vo Liem for Calc III. He did okay with the accent, but found that he was a “low talker”.</p>
<p>He was quite worried that he’d be wearing a puffy shirt by the end of the semester. </p>
<p>His words, not mine. He cracks me up!</p>
<p>what’s a puffy shirt?!</p>
<p>^^^Seinfeld reference.</p>
<p>Beginning of last semester S (ECE major) was concerned about prof accent in one class and if he’d be able to follow along. I told him to look at this as a great incentive to approach him after class and office hours - “I’d was thinking about _____ and wanted see if I understand it correctly.” What better way to get to know your professors, AND them you. </p>
<p>Hubby’s response “in your field, there’s going to be a lot of accents” from all over.</p>
<p>Key factors: they know their subject; are approachable (never heard of any not being so at UA); and UA is not TA driven but professor driven.</p>