<p>Has anyone compiled such a set of info.? Any good existing threads?</p>
<p>Mike</p>
<p>I would also like to know…</p>
<p>I’ll bump this thread and check back in on it from time to time. Great idea!</p>
<p>Hmm…Ive never heard of such a thread but here are some of my insights: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>DONT buy the books at the UF Bookstore without first shopping around. Ive found buying my books online (mostly using half.com) is significantly cheaper! Example: Biochem book at the local bookstores: $145 USED! Online: $70. </p></li>
<li><p>Get involved as soon as you can on campus! It really makes the campus feel smaller and you’ll enjoy yourself more. Some clubs Im a part of and would recommend:
Florida Alternative Breaks (Community service trips, pretty cheap too!, during academic breaks)
AED (Alpha Epsilon Delta- GREAT Pre-health society, has really helped me achieve a lot of the things Ive done on campus academically, socially, and extracurricular wise.) </p></li>
</ul>
<p>Just join something you’ll really like! </p>
<ul>
<li><p>I didnt like my campus dining experience (I thought it was overpriced), but it is convenient. At least they offer more stuff on campus than when I was a freshman. I think the declining balance is the way to go, instead of blocks (do they still offer those?) </p></li>
<li><p>Favorite restaurants in Gville: The Top, Chopsticks, Merlion, Las Margaritas, New Deal Cafe, Leonardo’s, Satchel’s, Bagels Unlimited.
(Im sure there are a bunch more, these are just the ones I go to often.) </p></li>
</ul>
<p>Well can’t think of any other tips right now but feel free to ask!
Have fun and good luck to you your first year!</p>
<ol>
<li><p>don’t eat the yellow snow</p></li>
<li><p>don’t pee in the wind</p></li>
<li><p>the cake is a lie</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Thanks sobe55! Those are some good tips! What about off campus housing? Is there any good apartments that you would recommend? Or how to find a good roommate? Also, is it easy to adjust? I know absolutely nobody and I’m very nervous of being lonely and homesick…</p>
<p>Any sophomores or upperclassmen read/post these boards? Seems you guys have to have, I wish I only knew xyz stories?</p>
<p>Are there classes one should avoid CLEP out of…
How are the advisors? Are they there to help or weed out?
Any you’d recommend?
Any good informal classes? Study techniques ect…
Best time to crash Frat RUSH parties? :)</p>
<p>Mike</p>
<ol>
<li>If you’re not first, you’re LAST</li>
</ol>
<p>I’m a senior nuclear engineer at UF.</p>
<p>There are many high quality apartment complexes around gainesville, it all depends on what specifically you’re looking for. Price, quality of rooms, proximity to campus, availability of buses are all things you have to consider. The first time I got an apartment I just signed up for random roommates and didn’t really like them, so I didn’t really talk to them. The past year I signed with some friends and we’ve lived together. Most apartments have some sort of “roommate matching” which is either them assigning based on a questionaire you fill out, or sometimes they’ll set up events for people who don’t have roommates to try to meet and agree to live together.</p>
<p>You know absolutely nobody and are planning to live off campus? You’re going to need to find some other way to meet people then, on-campus Weeks of Welcome events, for instance. It’s always best to start early when meeting new people, because after a little while people form their little friend groups and are more guarded about meeting new people. Also, I am a firm believer in talking to people in your classes, even if you don’t become best buds, it’s nice to know people in case you have to miss a class, need to work on a group project, whatever.</p>
<p>I personally think that Calc 1 is stupidly hard at UF, I never took it, but I helped one of my friends pass it, and there were questions there that I couldn’t do after having completed the entire math series.</p>
<p>For advisors, it sort of depends on what department/college you’re in. If you’re in the college of liberal arts, your advisors are going to be so busy that they won’t have time to either be helpful or weed you out, they’ll just try to rush along. Engineering has the most advisors by far, because we’re required to see them, and some engineering advisors are more of weed outs then helpers.</p>
<p>Your followup question seems vague to me, perhaps you have a different definition of advisor then me. All that stuff is college/department specific anyway.</p>
<p>You’d be suprised how much you may prefer big lecture classes to small informal classes. In the lecture, there’s nobody to yell at you if you don’t feel like paying attention, taking notes, contributing, whatever. I personally hate when a teacher calls on me when I have no idea what’s going on, so informal classes were never my thing.</p>
<p>Uhh, if you’re rushing, you will probably get invited to rush parties if your considered for a bid. Since they have weird rules about alcohol, sometimes the rush parties are “unofficial” so that they can get UA’s hammered, in which case they’ll be off campus somewhere. I went to one party like this, back in froshmen year, and realized that I really can’t stand frat kids.</p>
<p>Now, more general stuff that just pops into my head. If your living on campus freshman year, I would seriously consider the meal plan if you try the food at the dining halls and like it. IT can get a little boring eating the same types of things week-in and week out, but going to the dining hall is often a social experience (Meeting up with friends) that you miss out if you dont’ eat at the halls. They are a huge ripoff if you don’t have a meal plan; so if you dont’ get one, I would recommend checking out some of the restaurants right off university to eat between classes, cheaper and better food. I personally think declining balance is the biggest scam to ever exist, either do the meal plan, or don’t eat there.</p>
<p>Gator football is where it’s at, if you don’t know, the lottery is currently open. I recommend you register. It costs 75$ for the whole season (if you dont’ win the lottery, they refund your money). You will probably be able to sell your ticket to LSU for more then 75$. I, however, recommend you go to every game and scream til your voice is gone… I’ll be right there with ya.</p>
<p>Pretty soon you’re going to have to make serious decisions about your future, it’s best not to delay. If you want to go to a high end med/law/grad school, you’re going to need to start thinking early about how to craft the skill sets/resume needed to get what you want. There’s nothing worse then getting into your senior year and realizing you have very few marketable qualities except your major (some of my friends have been running into a dearth of resume stuff).</p>
<p>Learn the good places to study in the libraries. Marston is the library that isn’t a library, you can be loud and pretty rediculous there. Especially on the third floor. It’s great for if you have a ton of people who want to study together. I’m not a library west fan, too many little premed kids who don’t know how to relax and loosen up. It’s good to know places that you can always find a seat, even when the library is packed during finals week.</p>
<p>There’s lots more, but I’ve been droning on and on, if you have any more specific questions, Icheck back quite frequently.</p>
<p>Thanks Zaersz, that was reeeaaallly helpful!!!</p>
<p>Zaersz, thanks for taking the time, you’ve provided some useful information that will be helpful…</p>
<p>
Have this one covered, plan to do first year on campus…</p>
<p>
Is there a website for this info.? Main UF page? Any other UF related sites you can mention? I know you can’t do a direct link, but keywords or name without link…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Good to know, do you think this is true of all Calc 1? Advise on where to get good info. on professors?</p>
<p>
Understood</p>
<p>
Interesting. How about TA’s do they actually end up teaching students or are big hall lectures a source of learning. Do they expect you to learn from the book…</p>
<p>
Nope, but rush parties are fun. :)</p>
<p>
Good to know…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Awesome! Entering students can submit for the lottery?</p>
<p>
Do you mean something like an internship? Any recommendations on that?</p>
<p>
Interesting, any other cool places to hang on or around campus to socialize?</p>
<p>Regards,</p>
<p>Mike</p>
<p>So are you saying it’s actually better to skip Calc 1? (Assuming you do well on the AP Calc Exam)</p>
<p>I’ll try to address all your questions. Once the fall semester gets closer there will be more stuff about weeks of welcome, I don’t really know how they do it for summer B, it’s mainly a fall thing as far as I know. It’s just something to think about that when everyone is new to campus, they’re gonna be more likely to want to make friends, since a lot of people are “new in town”. They do a good job informing you, especially if you’re going to be living on campus. Your dorm will also do events for you to meet people, go to those, at least a couple of them.</p>
<p>For calc 1, back when I was helping my friend it was a standardized class, meaning that no matter who you took, you were going to be taking the same tests. These tests were written by a crazy professor who made them super hard. Chem has had that same issue before. Sometimes the guys who have been there forever expect you to know a whole lot, and if they write the tests, you might get a little screwed. In the end they’ll curve the class or something so that people don’t fail. I have never really researched my professors beforehand, because I feel like online reviews often paint a biased picture.</p>
<p>The science intro classes, like chem 1, physics 1, calc 1/2 are all mostly lecture three times a week with several hundred kids, then a discussion with a TA which is about 20 kids. In my experience the discussion was basically a question/answer time; along with a quiz usually. Basically this classes give you a few different options to learn, you can pick up the material in lecture if you have a decent grasp of it or you can learn on your own from the book. If you get stuck, big classes tend to have tons of tas with lots and lots of office hours for you to go get help. It’s also sometimes adviseable to form study groups. If you have to take like intro comp classes or intro lit classes, they are often like 20-30 students all taught by only a TA, no professor at all. I never took any of these so I don’t know how they are.</p>
<p>The lottery is open until some time in june I think. Go on gatorzone and look for the football student ticket info. Since you’ll be a freshmen, you have a lower chance of getting the ticket, but it’s still worth a shot. I got one freshmen year and so did a bunch of people in my dorm.</p>
<p>I mostly mean keep in mind what your end goal is, so you can keep up with it. If you don’t decide you want to go to med school till junior year, and you look at your GPA and it’s 3.0 cause you never went to class, you’re gonna be kicking yourself. I mean deciding on if you’re gonna need to join professional organizations or service organizations to get into grad school. I also mean looking for internships if you’re in a technical field, this is one of the mistakes I made, I am going to graduate without any work experience. A lot of these things are specific about what major you end up in.</p>
<p>On campus, I am always amazed how few people take advantage of the reitz union game room. I’m an avid pool player, and those are some of the best pool tables I have ever played on. It’s also very cheap during the day, a great way to kill a couple hours between classes. Almost every time I have a break I meet up with some friends to shoot some pool (or, hopefully this summer I’m going to learn to bowl).</p>
<p>There’s a bunch of little things you’ll pick up while you’re here. The entertainment a crazy preacher at Turlington yelling at you about how you’re going to hell can provide (I once accidentally missed my whole day of class to talk to these guys, since theology has always been a big interest of mine). The eccentric Krishnas and their “karma free” lunch at Plaza of the Americas. Student government election time resulting in you being asked a billion times if you’ve voted. It’s all the little things that add up to what make UF unique.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Heh, those are all the little things I find that make UF annoying, not unique. But to each his own…</p>
<p>Good set of feedback, it make me think of a few other questions.</p>
<p>1: What’s the class add/drop strategy? Do professors play the game where they make a class seem easy before the add drop period ends, then ramp things up after it’s too late?</p>
<p>2: How late in the game can you drop a class if it looks like it will hurt your GPA? Can you retake a class to erase the previous grade?</p>
<p>3: How many hours would you consider an easy vs difficult load?</p>
<p>4: Are the required/recommended semester plans (in hours) to graduate in four years a reasonable load? Meaning, can you have some fun while you do well in school. Or would it make better sense to either CLEP out of the easier classes and/or take some during the summer? I was thinking take a light load for the first semester to get a handle on things, then make it up in the summer to stay on the 4 year target.</p>
<p>5: Are there classes that are better during the summer/spring/fall semesters?</p>
<p>Regards,</p>
<p>Mike</p>
<p>Generally professors are straightforward about their classes, they don’t want to trick you. Of course sometimes the professors don’t have realistic expectations, but they don’t really decieve you. Obviously classes are easier early on because a lot of people don’t have their books, havn’t added the class yet, whatever.</p>
<p>The drop for a W on your record deadline is about a month before the end of the semester. The deadline this semester was April 9 (Finals ended april 30th) so it’s pretty darn late in the semester.</p>
<p>I have taked 14-16 credits every semester I’ve been at UF, except the summers. 12 is the minimum you can take as a Fulltime student. The difficultly of your semester plan again, depends ont he major. Some of them are unrealistic, and some of them arn’t even 4 year plans. I’m trying to complete my 5 year plan in nuclear engineering in 4 years, assuming I don’t fail anything, I will succeed. 16 credits is on the top end of what I consider reasonable, when i take 16 credits I feel like I’m doing way too much. Anything 14 or below has been considerably easier. Also if you’re only taking 14 it’s likely your hands will be tied with regard to dropping, because dropping would put you below the 12 required for fulltime.</p>
<p>I always think it’s best to place out of the intro classes if you understand the material, might as well just take an easier courseload.</p>
<p>The biggest thing about semester differences is that usually you’ll be taking less classes in the summer (1-2 instead of 4-5, unless you’re insane) so you can focus better, and thus getting good grades is easier. It’s hard to skip when you only have one class a day. Gainesville is VERY hot in the summer, because it’s so far inland, and campus is pretty low on people. It’s a totally different experience (one that I personally enjoy)</p>
<p>One more tip!
You will be sure to learn this your first weeks in class but DO NOT WAIT to get help in a class, especially those larger ones. </p>
<p>Two things will make your life soo much easier:
Tutoring Zone (or Tutoring Train) and Smokin Notes/Einstein notes. </p>
<p>Tutoring zone: They offer exam reviews for many classes, especially all the pre-health and business classes. They’re supposed to be SUPPLEMENTARY to the studying you already do on your own, but many students rely solely on this. (exam reviews are about $25)
I’m really lazy when it comes to picking up those very boring textbooks for Calc and Physics, so I just went to tutoring zone before each exam and did really well.
You can still do really well in your classes without going to these, it’s just my lazy way of studying. </p>
<p>*<em>There’s plenty of FREE tutoring such as Broward Teaching Center ([Teaching</a> Center - Home](<a href=“Academic Resources – College of Liberal Arts & Sciences”>http://www.teachingcenter.ufl.edu/)), help at the chem building, and of course your TAs!
*</em></p>
<p>Also, Smokin Notes are amazing because it condenses all that reading you have to do and everything you mightve missed from lecture into these great packets. Very useful for almost all the business classes and the Bios! </p>
<p>And just to clarify, Im not advertising, Im just mentioning what worked for me. =)</p>
<p>
Interesting, good point. What happens if you fall below the 12 hour requirement?</p>
<p>
Good info.! Free tutoring will definitely be welcomed. Do they provide any classes that help students learn more efficient study habits?</p>
<p>Thanks again for the info., it’s very helpful…</p>
<p>Really good stuff Zaersz. Thanks. </p>
<p>Quick question though: What are the best honors classes to take? I got in the honors program and just got an e-mail saying I had to register for an honors class, but I am hesitant to pick a core class, like Honors Calc 2 or Honors Chem, as one would expect them to be more difficult.</p>
<p>Are there any easy honors classes? (oxymoron aside)</p>
<p>I took one honors class, and decided I had no interest in completing the requirements of the honors program. I took honors introduction to professional development or something, it’s the honors version of first year florida, I would not recommend it unless you don’t mind BS. 10% of our grade was meeting with the teacher and our “student advisor” our of class to “hang out”. Also like 50% of our grade was some scrap book about what we had done that semester.</p>
<p>Personally I think it’s a waste to to take superfluous classes, so I would look for classes that at least fulfill some sort of gen ed requirement, or a major requirement. But to each his own, there’s a bunch of really fluffy options (stuff like the philosophy of starcraft).</p>
<p>I am very much an anti-honors advocate, I think the program is a waste.</p>