<p>mu son is considering applying to uf next fall. can any freshman, please give me their impression (good or bad) about their experience over the first 4 months of being at miami.</p>
<p>i am interested in everything you have to say,... social life, dorms, food, classes, professors..</p>
<p>thanks</p>
<p>i meant to say Gainseville, not miami. i also posted this on the university of miami board as well.</p>
<p>any freshman willing to let us know how the first 4 months have gone... good or bad.</p>
<p>thanks</p>
<p>yeah please give us some feedback</p>
<p>Hey, I am a freshman at UF and I love it there!! Um.. I don't really know what else to say, but if y'all have any more specific questions I wouldn't mind answering.</p>
<p>jenco10, any info on the dorm you are staying at? Do you like it or not?</p>
<p>for college dad, ill give you the run through a lot of my friends there now who are attending undergrad/grad or are an alumni.</p>
<p>they all love the atmosphere present in gainesville. its that college town feel thats becoming more and more rare. It's becoming ever so harder to find a place where the entire town is surrounded around the college. They say living there, studying and living in the dorms is an experience like no other.</p>
<p>In terms of dorm rooms theres a bunch of threads available on the topic. I'm an incoming freshman for the class of 2011 and I'll be doing summer B. In the summer I'll be staying in Jennings and fall in Broward. Broward is said to be the most social dorm room. I can balanace study and work (study when I must) but I'd like to be in a place that allows me to walk out my room and see people.</p>
<p>I'm in Hume..and it's great. The only downside is that it is kind of far from some of my classes.</p>
<p>thanks ruo and jenco.</p>
<p>we went to florida last summer to visit a relative and visited university of miami, university of central florida and uf in gainesville. my son really likes uf the most and is working hard toward aplying there next fall. he knows its tough for oos students, but he will try EA summer B and see what happens.</p>
<p>ruo congrats on getting in, you must be very excited. </p>
<p>jenco... how do you find the courses you are taking? how were the football games? </p>
<p>thank you both for the input</p>
<p>the tour at uf was really nice. we all loved the end... going into "the swamp"</p>
<p>it must be a great experience going to those games.</p>
<p>thanks for the congrats collegedad, and i most certainly am.</p>
<p>the good news for your son though is that UF is pushing for more out of state kids. why? $$ and diversity. I attend a private school thats suppose to groom students to get into difficult schools.</p>
<p>out of 11 ED applicants only i got in. in other words, those slots are going somewhere. just make sure he makes a good essay, UF actually reads them.</p>
<p>the thing about uf collegedad is that you really CANNOT judge the atmosphere based on the summer. summer compared to year time is very VERY different. the town almost doubles in population. you have to visit it when classes are in session to understand it</p>
<p>My classes were smaller and more challenging than I expected at a big state school. While I wasn't taking any big intro classes, my largest class was about 200 people, and I had a few classes with under 20 people. Also, football at UF is AMAZING!! Being in the swamp on gameday is definitely one of the greatest experiences at Florida and really highlights the school spirit here. Basketball games are also pretty cool although the atmosphere is no where near the same thing as football.</p>
<p>Thats a big misconception among many people. Just because you are going to a big state university doesn't mean your classes will be easy. The relative difficultly of the classes are the same as if you went to any top ivy school. Especially at UF.</p>
<p>glad to hear about the class sizes. i had heard that the lecture hall classes are 300 plus and that kids have an option of watching the lectures on tv rather than attend those classes. not that that's a bad thing, i just was curious about that.</p>
<p>ruo, thanks for your input about oos applicants. we plan to visit gainesville again in march. when we were there last summer, while there weren't many students around, all the students we met loved it and seemed so happy at uf. we also went to the area i guess referred to as downtown gainesville. we ate at this really cool sushi restaurant ( i forgot the name). the town looked like so much fun. i wish i was going to college again. you guys are really lucky. make the most of it and have fun. hopefully you will see my son (matt) there in the fall of 08.</p>
<p>My daughter had quite of few of those large lectures this semester and, although she went to a small private high school with 18 kids/per class max, she had no problem with the large lecture format. She was also surprised at the difficulty of her core classes. She found the off campus "tutoring zone" to be very helpful in preparing for exams. She loved having the lectures online because she could go back and review if she didn't understand something. It was also great when she came down with a virus...she just watched the lectures later when she felt up to it. My D tried to get to class on the earlier side so that she could sit in the first few rows. Her large lectures, like calculus, broke down into small sections and she really liked (found helpful) her section TA. On social life, she loves the college life and Gainesville is such a safe, college student friendly town. Both macro and micro economics lectures are early (8:30 am/9:30 am) on Mon./Wed/Frid. and it is tough to get up and go....but she does. She does find the sorority girls in the dorm annoying at times since they go to greek functions on weeknights and come home to the dorm very late and very loudly (probably inebriated imo but she isn't talking). There is a lot of diversity on campus (all religions, oos kids, many diff. races, diff. socio-economic backrounds) something she didn't get at her private high school, and this is a good thing. </p>
<p>The cool sushi restaurant in downtown old Gainesville was probably Dragonfly...it is amazing...you should also try Mark's US Prime next door if you are into steak...best we've ever had!</p>
<p>D and I are still very close and she shares quite of bit of her college life so if you have any other questions...I may be to answer them.</p>
<p>Yep, dragonfly.</p>
<p>nycollegedad, I will post my opinions when I get back to UF. I have had a stressful semester and finally have a brake.</p>
<p>asmaj</p>
<p>thanks for the input. look forward to your comments</p>
<p>I meant break not brake.</p>
<p>i'm a freshman computer science major (recently switched from business economics -- definitely not for me) and I live in Yulee. i'm willing to answer any questions</p>
<p>with regards to the difficulty.. umm, yea, it's definitely not a piece of cake. you definitely don't want to put yourself in the position where you get off to a bad start and find yourself treading uphill.</p>