How tough is UT academically?

<p>I know that UT is a prestigious university and one of the top in the nation, but how difficult is it to do well at UT? Is it tough/challenging to get a good GPA?</p>

<p>I hear engineering is difficult. But liberal arts, business, etc. I don't know. I do know a girl who was valedictorian of my senior class a year ago who goes to UT and she's majoring in biology (wants to get into med school) and she said that it was kind of difficult but overall okay. Yeah I know that sounds kind of vague but those are her words. I have another friend who goes to UT (also bio major) and told me it's really hard but she's managing, and without having to destroy her social life either. I also know a girl, who's my neighbor and now attends UT who majors in international business and gets drunk at parties quite a few weekends and then makes use of the 24hr library a lot. According to her parents she's doing alright, but if she was about to flunk out I doubt they'd tell us. But she was a really serious and good student when I knew her so I think she's doing well. Oh yeah and my english teacher who went to 4 different schools in texas said that UT was the only school she knew where kids could have a 4.0 GPA and a blood alcohol level to match. Which either means UT kids are super smart or the courses are super easy, I think it's the first tho.</p>

<p>The difficulty varies widely depending on the subject and the professor. For example, in first semester German, I spend an hour to an hour and a half a day, every day, studying and doing homework. I barely pulled off an A. Second semester German, I spend maybe three hours a week and have a low A again. Pickaprof.com can help you choose your classes wisely, although it can't help for all classes. </p>

<p>All that said, I spend about 15 to 18 hours a week outside of class and I have a 3.91. I find it challenging but not overwhelming. Is that what you wanted to know?</p>

<p>Fiyero what's your major tho? And all together how many hours a day do you study? Know anything about communications especially journalism? Sorry, it's just that I really want to know how challenging UT is too. Altho I think if you're not lazy anyone can do well. It's the procrastinators that are really screwed at UT IMO.</p>

<p>From what i hear, the communications school is really easy, liberal arts major is fairly easy, business and science majors require work but they aren't mentally exhausting, engineering starts out fine and then gets hard as hell.</p>

<p>It's important to keep distinctions between majors that are abstract and rigorous and that are impossible to cram and fake it versus those that aren't intellectually demanding but may have a lot of prosaic busy-work; and also grading policies by department, which vary.</p>

<p>Communications and business are easy (except finance.)</p>

<p>Liberal arts- varies a lot. Economics has hard grading. Sociology is super easy. Some majors are harder as-is, like philosophy and English due to tough reading and heavy writing inherent in them, but people rarely get below C as long as they do the minimum.</p>

<p>Sciences- computer sciences and chemistry are brutal (50% failure rates). Math and physics are hard by nature but departments don't seem to go out of their way to get people to fail so grading isn't as hard as CS and chem. Biology isn't too bad from what I've heard.</p>

<p>Engineering- electrical, aerospace, chemical, biomed are brutal. Civil/mech/petro hard, but more due to heavy work loads.</p>

<p>I am going to be a psychology major in the liberal arts school, and since I want to eventually head to medical school, I'm taking all the required courses needed to apply for med school (1 year each of biology, chemistry, physics, etc.) Is majoring in Psychology hard at Texas? What about majoring and taking pre med courses? thanks for all of your insights!</p>

<p>You'd be surprised how much actually depends on the professor and the TA you have. To use psychology as an example, in the fall of 2007 I registered for intro to psych with Pennebaker (the chairman of the psychology department) - bad idea! After the first day, I dropped and registered for psych with Salinas as my professor. Some of my friends decided to stay in with Pennebaker (to give him credit, the class is suppose to be amazing) and struggled to make a B. And I mean really struggled. These were smart people, but he made the test crazy hard and graded on a strict bell curve. Plus if you have an 89.49, you get a B not matter what... even if it means losing your scholarship... he won't give you that .01 for anything. I think only about 10% made an A and the average was a C. My class on the other hand was great. The prof was rather funny (if you don't mind that he swore every other word) and the tests were easy as pie and you got to drop the lowest. I actually only went to class about half the time and still easily pulled an A. So, prime example of a professor making a class hard or easy.</p>

<p>stexas8, I'm also plan on majoring in psychology and head to medical school. Not sure how hard it's going to be but I doubt it will be easy. Use pick-a-prof to chose the "easiest" teachers. Also, do you know what classes you're supposed to take to get a BS in psychology?</p>

<p>leeznon:
Degree Plan for bs in psych
<a href="http://www.utexas.edu/cola/content/degree_plans/2008_2010_catalog/PSYBS-08-10.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.utexas.edu/cola/content/degree_plans/2008_2010_catalog/PSYBS-08-10.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>You don't want to pick the easiest professors from whom you will learn nothing. Pick the most reasonable ones!</p>

<p>My neighbor's daughter got into the engineering school a few years ago and she ended up dropping out of engineering her sophmore year to do business but business was also stressful for her so she dropped UT all together and is now going to U of H. She was top 10%.</p>

<p>My friend is in the UT engineering school now and is having a tough time. I don't know if partying has anythign to do with it though. It might. Anyways, hes also a top 10%er and had lots of AP credit and a great SAT score (2200ish).</p>

<p>Its all about how much you study. You need to have disciplin and know when to party and when not to. If your doing engineering, I wouldnt recomend more than once a week.</p>

<p>goldtx, excellent point! When I was at UT, years ago, I purposely skipped a prof in structural engineering, because he was so tough. It wasn't until I was in the working world that I realized what a world-renowned authority he was, and what an amazing opportunity I'd thrown away. The associate professor I took instead wasn't very good and ended up not even getting tenure.</p>

<p>I studied very hard, but also partied a good bit! I ended up with over a 3.8 GPA and a paid fellowship to UT grad school. You just have to budget your time and get to know the profs well so you can get help when you need it. I did make a few Cs.</p>

<p>Yeah, when I mentioned pickaprof I didn't mean to take only professors who were the easiest graders. In whatever your major is, you don't want to do that, or for that matter in any other subject where you will take courses which build on previous classes. Instead, you can use it to find the professors you can benefit from by reading the reviews. Some professors are great at teaching, some are not. When you get a great professor, it won't matter that you must work a bit harder. </p>

<p>I will confess I used pickaprof to find the easiest professor for a general ed course I had to take. I regretted using it that way. I learned absolutely nothing.</p>

<p>If you want to look at a website that gives comments from former students about a certain professor/instructor, go to ratemyprofessor.com.</p>

<p>My son is in business/accounting major, most classes have not been that hard, but there are a few required classes that are almost impossible to make A's due to the grading process of the teachers. His accounting classes have been tough, but if you do the work and study, you can make A's. His general ed and electives have varied, but I don't think he's put much effort into those. His GPA is around a 3.7 to 3.75.</p>