Questions about social life, English dept.

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Maryland - College Park
1

<p>Hi,</p>

<p>I just completed my sophomore year at American University, and due to a variety of factors I applied to transfer to College Park for Fall '09. I have a couple of questions I was hoping you guys could help me with.</p>

<li><p>A large part of the reason I’m transferring is because the social scene at AU sucks. If you’re not in Greek Life or very involved in the activist scene, it’s hard to find a group of people to hang out with consistently. In addition to being somewhat of a difficult place to make friends, the dating scene is also notoriously bad, and I’m tired of sitting around with other female students bemoaning the lack of eligible guys on campus. Can I expect my situation to improve noticeably if I transfer to UMD, or is it very difficult to find a niche as a junior transfer?</p></li>
<li><p>I’m currently studying Literature at AU. Can anyone give me an idea of the strength/quality of UMD’s English department? I know that the humanities tend to be overshadowed and underfunded at state schools, and I wouldn’t want to make the switch only to find that the caliber of professors and coursework is below that at AU.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>Thanks so much!</p>

2

<p>I’m an English major at Maryland, and I really like it. The teachers are really knowledgeable about the material they teach–mainly because they have a lot of freedom to design their courses.</p>

<p>[OurUMD</a> - Students in charge of their education | OurUMD](<a href=“http://www.ourumd.com%5DOurUMD”>http://www.ourumd.com)
<a href=“http://www.english.umd.edu/courses/undergraduate/[/url]”>http://www.english.umd.edu/courses/undergraduate/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>You can use the first site to see grade distributions and some professor reviews. On the second site, you can see a list of English classes offered every semester and a course description.</p>

<p>This semester I’m taking a course in Shakespeare’s Sonnets and one about Language and Humor. I’m halfway through writing my term paper about “That’s what she said” as a joke.</p>

3

<p>Thanks, that’s good to hear. The course selections look great, and the professors seem really qualified and interesting.</p>