<p>It’s actually a little more complicated than that but those were the basics. Another thing to keep in mind is that if you end up getting a good number of grants and scholarships it will be up to you to cancel however many subsidized loans you need to to get back under your calculated need (cost of attendance - expected family contribution) for total aid for the year. If you leave it up to the school they can take away your grants first and reward them to someone else.</p>
<p>Also, if your EFC is low you will likely end up getting a check from VT, especially if you live off campus. You can reduce your loans so that this doesn’t happen, but if you’re going to be taking out a car loan it makes a lot of sense to take out (SUBSIDIZED) student loans if you qualify instead. The interest rate will be lower and you won’t have to repay right away. Even if you don’t have any major expenses if money is tight and you’re financially responsible you’re much better off with an extra thousand or two in loans than a couple thousand in credit card debt.</p>
<p>Unsubsidized loans suck though, avoid them if you’re able.</p>
<p>I stand corrected. Well I can’t really speak to much about professors. I don’t think I have been here long enough to give a valid enough response. But the few teachers I have had usually avoided politics all together (You gotta remember that I’m an engineering major and thus most of my classes are STEM related). However, there are 3 instances I’ll point out. Interpret them however you can. These are simply occasions that happened to me and don’t think they can/should speak for VT as a whole.</p>
<p>-The only STEM teacher I ever had that would gallivant and ramble on about random topics was my chem teacher. Trivedi is a very opinionated man who never really said this political idea was true/false. He would state how he felt and that was simply his opinion. I mean these random side track thoughts had nothing to do with what he was teaching so it was very easy to dismiss it as him trying to “indoctrinate” you. I felt like he said some opinions from both sides of the spectrum for what its worth.
-My english teacher was a highly liberal person. Once again she didn’t “indoctrinate” you but would say remarks here and there about what she thought. Like if someone made a presentation about the War in Iraq you could expect her to say a sentence or two about the war after. Something like “yeah Bush got us in a hell of a mess. Look at all the debt we have now. Next up to present?”.<br>
-I took something called engineering cultures where we examined how the engineering profession grew and established itself as a professional body in various countries around the world like France, Germany, Russia, USA, India. This class got into MANY political debates. Because of examining various pressures and issues like Communism in Russia, or labor unions in the USA we would often get into to why these outside influences to engineering were beneficial/bad. Here I thought the professor did an excellent job as to merely mediating and giving both trains of thought time to argue/defend. He rarely gave his opinions. He would ask questions and try and let the discussion give an answer. For the record I feel he was also liberal, but I get the feeling this is the kind of teacher you are looking for. </p>
<p>Once again these are merely 3 instances. I cant speak a whole lot as to what they mean or how they fit to the overall personality of VT professors. However, I do think you are on to something when you say that humanities is a “checkbox” for engineers and other STEM majors. I think there is some truth in that. I mean obviously we aren’t cold robots who ignore culture but I believe the average STEM student/professor cares less about the humanities than anybody else. But I feel like that’s true EVERYWHERE you go. That is a left side/right side of the brain dilemma. Now for the record, VT has a large engineering department that has a large portion of the student population and faculty/resources. There is no denying that. But if your kid really wants to be a well rounded individual who studies humanities then they have that ability. Humanities may be dead to the average engineer but its not dead to the average Hokie. Once again I emphasize that I can’t speak as to how politically biased these humanities courses will be but like someone else has said: Can’t be any more liberal than Mass.</p>