Hi! I’m a prospective freshman and I’d love some feedback on the professors at UT. UT is a large research university, so I assume that many of the professors also conduct research. Does research seem to take priority over teaching? Also, how would you say the quality of teaching is? Are many of the classes route memorization, or do professors like to teach conceptually if possible? Any general comments would also be great!
Furthermore, how accessible are professors if you need help? Are there good options for tutoring?
All feedback is appreciated!! I will be majoring in Chemical Engineering, so feedback from Chemistry/Engineering students would be especially helpful 
This is my 4th year here and I am a strong believer that research is valued more than teaching. There’s some tenured professors here making $200k+ per year that are not great at teaching but have earned their salary from their research. Whether or not a professor has an emphasis on teaching or research depends on their position which can be seen here: http://salaries.texastribune.org/university-of-texas-at-austin/departments/department-of-chemical-engineering/
Most of my math and science professors say stuff like “I hate memorization” or “I don’t want you to memorize this-I want you to understand how it works.” Some of them will let you use a cheat sheet on an exam or give you formulas so that you don’t have to memorize. Others will not. It just depends on the professor. I did not do chemical engineering-I was computer engineering my first year then switch to mathematics.
MyEdu was very helpful for me deciding which professors I wanted to take. I was able to put off courses and take them at a later time under the professors I wanted for most of my courses. I don’t think the chemical engineering degree plan would have quite as much flexibility as mine. I noticed that most of my lower division math courses for my major were taught by lecturers and then the upper division have been more often professors who were higher up.
@SadHippo Thank you so much for your informative post! It’s unfortunate to hear that research takes priority over teaching 
I hate memorization and prefer conceptual learning, so that does seem beneficial to me. I’ll check over the salary link and MyEdu when trying to choose my courses; thanks so much for the advice!
Overall, are you happy with your opportunities/general life at UT? I love the social scene, ATX, and the career opportunities, but I’m still debating over whether it’s worth it to pay OOS tuition.
@SadHippo, are there any student evaluations of teachers available?
^ratemyprofessor. There may be others as well.
The quality of teaching varies. My son has had profs for lectures, but grad students for small discussion groups. I think that is pretty standard everywhere; it was at the Ivy I attended many years ago. The more advanced and or smaller classes have profs for both lecture and discussion. Son is a sophomore this year and has just profs.
If I had to venture a rough guess, I’d say 75% of son’s profs were good, 25% meh. No one has been bad. He did have a physics prof last year who was alarmed at how low the test grades were and repeated a topic. She cared whether the students were mastering the material.
All of his profs have had office hours. He has attended maybe half, some for help, some for further inquiry.
There seems to be a lot of tutoring available. Some of it is dorm based (like at Jester), some through special programs, some through departments, and some is private. One math class son had offered peer to peer tutoring because the prof wanted kids to work together on problem sets. S has a friend who is smart, but has to work hard to do well. He is imho the model college student: he does the problem sets and attends office hours and goes to the tutoring that works best for him.
@imthereal I am happy with the opportunities and general life at UT. We have over a thousand registered student organizations for whatever interests our students have and there are also big career fairs for each college. As far as whether or not OOS tuition is worth it, that depends both on your financial situation and which universities you have in state-a question that I would not be able to answer 
@Austinwannabe Yes, there are three good websites that I know of. In order, I’d say
- MyEdu
- RateMyProfessor
- UT Course Instructor Surveys
Note that 1) requires you set up an account but it is free and effortless. I like MyEdu because it has grade distributions (students select which grade they make in a class under their professor and it stores this in a database). It also has a space for written comments about professors. RateMyProfessor doesn’t have grade distributions but it has an “easiness” scale as well as helpfulness, clarity, and others that I can’t remember off the top of my head. UT Course Instructor Surveys display all the surveys that students filled out in their course at the end of each semester. These surveys are filled out in class and are official UT documents that students can view. It requires a UT EID log in to view.
UT CIS results site (second link from the bottom of that page is what you want):
http://ctl.utexas.edu/services/CIS/faculty_staff/survey_results
@Lizardly gave a very accurate response. I can say that our physics department is known for having very low exam scores. Professors in those departments with low exam scores will usually curve immediately after the exam or adjust grade cut-offs at the end of the semester. Jester has a lot of tutoring options available on the second and third floor. Most of it is more introductory engineering, science, and math courses. These tutoring centers are funded by the students tuition so you do not have to pay to enter (just need your UT ID card!)
List of courses that have tutoring on the 3rd floor Sanger Learning Center:
http://www.utexas.edu/ugs/slc/support/drop-in
There’s also the second floor engineering study tables (also has tutors for each discipline):
http://www.engr.utexas.edu/undergraduate/advising/tutoring/jester
@Lizardly @SadHippo Thank you for all of your input! One of the biggest reasons why I wanted to go to UT was because of the large amount of student organizations. I have a ton of interests, and being at such a big school in an awesome city seems like it’d never get boring
I do have to say I have some of the best state schools are located in my home state, but I feel like the fit isn’t right from the ones that I’ve visited. The tuitions are also expected to go up (though it’ll still be cheaper than UT OOS)… Any guesses as to what state I’m referring to? LOL. The one state school I do enjoy has a great engineering department, but I’ve heard that it’s ChemE program is unfortunately not up to par with the rest of its programs, and ChemE at UT is definitely better. I’d also like to have a focus on biotechnology/biomolecular engineering/etc, and my top school in-state doesn’t have that kind of concentration.
Speaking of tuition, how easy is it to declare domicile? I’m not sure how viable working 20 hours a week is as an engineering student. I’m planning on moving to Texas after graduation if I go to UT, so I might as well start living in Texas full-time during college.
It’s nice to know that there’s free tutoring! I will definitely be taking advantage of that. Do either of you know if the Women in Engineering living community in Kinsolving is helpful?
@lizardly @SadHippo thank you!! Great info