<p>Is there something in UChicago's culture that makes professors prone to being somewhat disorganized and to changing things at the last minute? </p>
<p>Not that it's a bad thing - it also results in more flexibility (which attracts me in the end).
There were at least two professors in two different departments who said that "changing things at the last minute" is a UChicago thing</p>
<p>MY DS has not found his profs disorganized at all. Most really seem to enjoy teaching as well, are accessible and available. </p>
<p>In fact, based on the completeness of some of the comments he’s received on papers he has written, I would conclude they are exacting to the point of exhaustion - one set of recent comments were longer than the paper itself, and the paper was 4 pp !</p>
<p>I have never heard of that.</p>
<p>Don’t bet on it. LOL</p>
<p>I haven’t heard of that either. I have really different professors at the moment (within the same department) who are on opposite ends of the organization scale, and it doesn’t bother me.
I like both methods.</p>
<p>My D had a few professors that took many quarters to post their grades. They all had other attribures that made their tardiness when it came to grades really not a big deal.</p>
<p>my son’s experience with U Chicago faculty has been exceptionally positive in all respects.</p>
<p>During his first two years living in a dorm, he spend hours each weak with the resident master, a faculty residing in an apartment in the dorm with his wife. Countless nights well into the wee hours discussing all sorts of things, reading and writing together, etc. He tremendously enjoyed these hours. He used to call this “talking to XXX course” and joked that that alone is worth half of his tuition.</p>
<p>With professors for his classes, anytime he wanted and stopped by, he had no problem getting their time and attention for hours at a time. He once showed me a paper he wrote and submitted as an email attachment. The paper came back with comments from faculty twice as long as the original paper (and it was not because my S’s work was shoddy: he got an A for it). He said getting lengthy commentaries on the style of writing, the patterns of logic etc that are going beyond the subject matter is actually quite common.</p>
<p>At the beginning of this quarter, he talked about another encounter with a faculty. He wanted to take a course that required two courses worth of prerequisite, which he did not take. So, he thought he would just audit, and stopped by at the faculty’s office to discuss it. The faculty ended up tutoring him for the rest of the afternoon, declared him ready for this class, and let him enroll formally (he is getting one of the highest scores on exams and assignments in this advanced course - so the faculty’s trust in his ability is not misplaced). </p>
<p>When I heard this latest story, I felt that the outrageous tuition is after all well worth it.</p>
<p>^Wow thanks for sharing your son’s experience. UChicago is simply awesome :)</p>