My son is accepted into Pre-Computer Science at U. Without knowing UC school results, this is now his top choice. He wants to study computer game design (CS with EAE focus). Does anyone know that program at U?
My son chose to pursue Pre-Games through the engineering department rather than Pre-CS. He believes that UU has a top 5 program for game design. I am a bit concerned that EAE is located away from the other majors of the engineering program (this is what I was told, but have not confirmed). Of course, I am also concerned about how the degree will carry. However, the decision is his to make… He is also considering Polytech at Purdue for animation and gaming. We will visit both and then he will decide.
@anxiousdad2020 My son chose Pre-CS rather than Pre-Game. He told me that BS in Game focuses more on the game arts; and CS with EAE focus focues on game programming. But still I am very concerned whether “game” is a valid career choice? I also do not know how good UU’s CS program is? If you have a chance to visit UU, please post your experience here. Thanks!
xiaobaomama2020 Will do on the the visit experience write-up. As to whether it is a good career choice, I cannot say. I do believe, from my own experience, that the chances of a student doing well in school increases, if they enjoy what they are studying. So, if he enjoys it, makes some good friends, and makes good grades, then I expect that things will work out. He may find out after a semester that making games is much less fun than playing them. So, I would be happy with him going to Utah, where they have strong Engineering and CS Departments, among others, in case he switches focus.
My S admitted last year as a freshman Class 2023—Pre-games. WUE scholarship. Decided to go to cc first. Just received acceptance in the regular mail (2/10/20) as a sophomore transfer. Applied 1/2/20. Waiting on Lassonde. Completed supplement on time (including a video). Toured Lassonde in December—amazing! 3.8 final WGPA HS 1250 SAT/26 ACT. 3.35 first semester cc. Great ECs. OOS tuition now. No scholarship as sophomore transfer. Likely will attend. Loves snowboarding, Games program (likely will switch to Games minor though) and the whole start-up vibe at Lassonde.
We will be visiting Utah on Friday. We will do the Games info session in the morning and then do the afternoon campus tour. Any advice for someone visiting there for the first time in order to make the visit beneficial for my son’s decision (other than to wear a good coat)?
@anxiousdad2020 Have you been to SLC before? How long are you staying?
On campus I think the views from the bridge are wonderful and give you a great sense of the place. The food court is good for lunch. The tour covers a lot of ground and is really comprehensive, so wear good shoes, especially as there’s a fair bit of snow and ice at the moment and it may rain or snow on Friday.
If you have a rental car and some extra time then try to get up into the mountains, and see how close the skiing is. Park City is fun to visit, though the holiday weekend will mean it’s crowded.
@anxiousdad2020 great advice from Twoin18 above. Yes, good shoes are a must for this time of year and for the tour! I’d add that you might want to try out the TRAX system as well (the local light rail) if you have time to see how easy it is for getting around town, over to Trader Joe’s and Smiths, downtown, and to and from campus in general.
@Twoin18 and @mom2adancer , I appreciate the advice. I have never been to SLC… We are flying in Thursday night and flying out Saturday morning. We are flying from Texas, so we will need to consider the shoe factor. My son has tennis shoes and dress shoes only.
@anxiousdad2020 We just got back from a long weekend in SLC (with great skiing) and tennis shoes with a good tread were OK, just avoid the puddles and plowed snow if walking on sidewalks, especially downtown. Campus is mostly pretty well drained as it’s on a hillside and they clear the paths quite promptly.
It is gorgeous at this time of year with snow on all the mountains. Try to go up to the bridge or somewhere else towards the top of campus for sunset if the weather is clear because there is an amazing view.
If your son likes the outdoors then Utah is wonderful. So many places to visit.
@Twoin18 and @mom2adancer, we returned from the visit. The campus is beautiful. I did not realize that the upper dorms are beside the mountains. A student can walk right to a trail. Oh, and it was 45 degrees with no snow on the sidewalks or roads (some in the grass) - nice. The campus was fairly empty, because it as the Friday before a holiday weekend. If I perceived things wrong below, people can feel free to correct me/provide another perspective.
We talked to two advisors, one for EAE and the other for CS. Both were very helpful. Unfortunately, with all the construction taking place in the undergrad section of the EAE building, we could not obtain a good sense of the new design. I wish that they would have shown a video or had pictures showing what the end product would be. Regardless, the presentation was informative, along with the tour of the graduate area. Also, we walked over and walked around the Law School next door. It has a little cafe in it and a great potential study area patio.
After the EAE information session, he became interested in the CS major with EAE emphasis. The CS advisor was nice enough to fit us into her schedule and discuss the program. One concern I had with the program is that only a certain number (300, I think) are allowed into the CS program per year, after taking some core and intro classes. It was not said, but I had a feeling that, the perspective students are weeded out via tough intro classes (need a 3.5 GPA to be guaranteed admission). It would be nice to know the stats of the number of students that pursue the program and the percentage that make it.
After the talks, we ate at the Union and walked around a bit. The food services and gaming area seemed a bit limited for the number of students, especially with a lack of walk-to off-campus choices. (we only saw a Panda Express, Jamba Juice, Einstein Bagels and then campus vendors, but we were told that food trucks are popular). However, that may have been a scale issue from us touring bigger universities. We then went to the campus tour.
We have been on five campus tours, and this was by far the longest. We were both tired after. That is not a complaint. If we are going to spend money on flights and hotel rooms, we might as well have a long tour. So, a couple of recommendations - wear very comfortable shoes and find a seat for the bus ride to the upper dorms, because standing can be a bit tough on the arms with all the curves.
Speaking of the upper dorms, that is one area in which we will need to research. There are the upper dorms (former fort bunks and Olympic dorms) and some spread throughout the lower campus (like Lassonde and the new dorms). I do not know which is the better way to go. I would think that walking downhill to early morning classes in freezing temps with snow/ice would be a pain. I do not know how crowded the buses would be daily. the Honor dorms are new and look very nice from the outside. However, the is not in our future. The upper dorm room that we toured was a double, and it seemed bigger than the ones that we have seen at four other campuses.
A few other scattered issues that we noticed. I do not recall seeing any stores/restaurants near (walking distance) the campus. There is a tram and bus system on campus. So, that may not be an issue. The gym was nice and seemed adequate (not crazy big like UC-Boulder). The outdoor activities rental store will be useful. The library had quiet and non-quiet areas, along with the writing center. They have a periodic farmer’s market. The concrete and facilities all seem to be in good shape. There are a lot of opportunities to sit outside to eat/study/other. The ability to obtain in-state tuition fairly easily was mentioned a few times. Also, we did not see many bikes.
One thing that surprised me a bit was that there was not much selling of the school’s intangibles., outside of a few stats from less popular publications and talk of the football stands student section (MUSS). Now, in fairness, the last school that we visited was Texas A&M, and there may be no school that touts itself more than them. Yet, saying that they are the best school at X in Utah is not a huge draw for me. Perhaps that is done, because BYU is their biggest competitor. I would have loved it, if they would have ended every presentation with, “We have great programs, fantastic student life, and the prettiest campus. If you choose to go elsewhere, then for four years, you are going to wish that you would have chosen to go here instead.”
To end, I asked my son for his good and bad. His favorite part was the scenery - the mountains and campus landscape His least favorite part was the size of the campus, because he anticipated that going to the different buildings while carrying his gaming laptop and books would be exhausting. Of course, that is not a deciding factor. He is excited about Utah, and the visit nailed down that it is one of his two final choices.
I know that this is obnoxiously long. However, I am too tired to edit it down.
That’s a great summary @anxiousdad2020 and I’m glad you enjoyed your visit.
I can’t answer all the questions above, but can offer a few thoughts.
On stats, Utah is quite generous in terms of grading, so a 3.5 is much easier to achieve than at many other schools. You can check out the grade distributions (by course and by major) here: https://www.obia.utah.edu/data/student-data/grade-summary/
On food services, the main cafeteria is near the dorms on the upper campus (you may have dropped in there on the tour), and then there are smaller cafe style places in most lower campus dorms and many other buildings, which along with the union facilities and the food trucks are mainly for lunchtime. Remember there’s a big commuter population of local students. You can get a meal transfer to the cafes or use flex dollars if you have a meal plan. But be warned, the upper campus cafeteria isn’t great, I think my D has only been there once in 1.5 years. It remains to be seen if the food choices at the new dorms (Kahlert Village) are better. That means a minimal meal plan is favored by many students (it is required in the dorms that don’t have kitchens) because they eat out a lot. Off campus there’s a selection of places (pub, pizza, etc) just below the campus across the street from the circle (where the oldest buildings are), which are quite popular in the evenings. You don’t really see that on the tour. You can also go downtown pretty easily.
On dorms, Lassonde and the new Kahlert Village are much nicer but correspondingly (much) more expensive (prices are here: https://housing.utah.edu/apply-reserve/rates-n-housing-account/). I think they’ll be much more popular despite the higher cost. My D found a lot of the social life was around Lassonde when she lived in MHC last year, but I’m guessing the new freshman dorm will become a big social hub.
In previous years there’s been a major shortage of housing, that’s less certain with this year’s massive new building but booking early is strongly advised (unfortunately that’s late March before you even need to commit, and note the HRE registration fee of $125 is non-refundable though you can get back the $200 room deposit before May 1). If you don’t choose in your allocated registration window then you might just be left with an upper campus triple.
On transportation, walking down to lectures (some use a scooter) and then getting the bus or Trax back up to the dorms is generally favored if you can’t be bothered walking. Trader Joe’s is a few stops on the Trax if you want to buy food. Many students have cars, not least to go skiing. Biking would be really hard work with the combination of steep hills and altitude so isn’t that popular.
On selling themselves, the only selling we experienced was related to cost, as you heard, instate tuition is a big draw, so the presentation includes statements like Utah being less expensive than the UCs (a relevant comparison given the size of the Californian student population and the much lower OOS costs compared to Arizona, Colorado, Oregon, etc.). Other than that, most OOS students either come for special programs (dance, nursing, gaming, etc) or because they love the outdoors and want to ski, often it’s both.
I think that the students who enjoy Utah the most are usually very outdoors oriented (not dissimilar to why people move to SLC for work or retirement). It’s not a big party school in the same way as Arizona or Boulder (for example the percentage in Greek life is pretty low), and although there is a lot of school spirit around football it’s not as intense as say TA&M or Clemson. As you saw, it empties out on a holiday weekend because there are so many great places to visit (my D went to Yellowstone this weekend, and in the last year she’s done lots of skiing, and been to all corners of Utah, gone climbing, rafting, etc.). Spring and fall break are chances to get outdoors rather than going to the beach: last year she went to Moab in spring and Red Rock canyon in fall, this spring it’s skiing in Banff. And even if they only have a few hours on a weekend they’ll go up the mountain behind campus or hike to the hot springs.
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Big thanks to the last posts. We are flying out to visit in a month and all of this info is very useful. In terms of housing, we received a postcard that housing is open. Does this mean we need to apply now? Even though we aren’t sure if our son will end up in SLC (probably 50-50) do we need to apply now?
@jd7777 You should definitely register before the priority deadline, which is either March 10 (for LLCs) or April 1 (for regular housing). You will then be allocated a registration timeslot about 2 weeks later and in the meantime can try to find roommates by checking out their profiles (eg you can put your FB/Instagram details on the profile) and messaging them. See https://housing.utah.edu/apply-reserve/process/
It may make sense to try for an LLC because you get an earlier reservation time and often it’s nicer rooms too. Freshmen may have a general ed class for their LLC (that is the case for honors, I’m not sure for non-honors students).
"In previous years there’s been a major shortage of housing, "
Has there ever been a shortage of housing? Color me shocked if that is true. We always assumed that was just a myth sold to OOS kids. I would like to see that quantified. I am not sure that the new housing is even justifiable, although COL off campus has really increased for close to campus access.
@Sybylla This year (19-20) there wasn’t close to enough on-campus housing for non-freshmen who wanted it, even for those who applied by the deadline. Even my D who has a scholarship covering her housing costs had to move to an off campus apartment. The new building will help a lot, and my D has been told she can move back to campus next year, but since the U’s objective is to add another 10K students (with the majority of those from OOS) over the next 5-10 years, the shortages will recur in a few years time. And as you point out, it’s gotten more difficult to save money by moving to private rentals just down the hill, which a lot of students have done in the past.
Having said that, there is an apartment building boom in downtown SLC and nicely equipped private accommodation is easy to find. Certainly far better and cheaper than for my S at UCLA. But given the costs of those apartments and the fact that the U’s housing contracts are only for 9 months, university housing is much less expensive if you aren’t staying for the summer.
@anxiousdad2020 it sounds like you had a thorough visit. That’s good. I’ll try to add a few more thoughts.
Food in the HC cafeteria and on campus in general was my daughter’s biggest complaint last year. She was in one of the Sage Point dorms and thus had no kitchen. She survived the year but supplemented with trips to Trader Joe’s (and care packages from Grandma). She never went to the HC for lunch due to her schedule, and I’m not sure she would have even if she could. We went with the cheapest, most flexible meal plan (150 block I think).
She often rode the shuttle back to her dorm at night since the walk is all uphill and the dance building is at the other end of campus. She took it some mornings too.
For studying during the day she often goes to the Marriott library and that works out fine for her.
Her dorm room was a single last year, and she had one roommate (also I her own single). They shared a bathroom. It was on the fine arts floor and she liked that. That particular LLC had no additional classes required but I think it did help her get a slightly earlier room selection date and time. We registered for a housing appointment before she’d committed knowing we’d lose it if she went elsewhere but knowing it would give her a slightly better chance at the housing she wanted.
We noticed when we were there for her audition and a later follow up visit that campus is very quiet on weekends. It’s just that kind of campus, and there is plenty to do elsewhere in the city and surrounding mountains.
My daughter ultimately chose Utah for the program, as that was her first criteria in selecting a school. She knew what she wanted in terms of classes, faculty, etc. and chose accordingly. She didn’t need or want a Greek system, football, etc. She has grown to love Salt Lake City and Utah, as well as the campus. She stayed for residency and that makes tuition quite affordable for us.
@anxiousdad2020 Thank you for your summary! My S is admitted as Pre-CS and he wants to major CS with EAE focus. We are from CA. With the WUE scholarship, UU costs less than many of the UCs. UU is now his top choice, but we are still waiting decisions from several UCs and CSUs.
Could anyone advise to pros/cons of Sage Point vs the new Kahlert dorms? We’ve never been on campus and doing the online housing stuff. The Living Learning options for Honors College are limited to Sage Point or the new building.
@JD7777 You should look at a map of where the dorms are relative to classes. What isn’t always obvious from the map is quite how big a hill the campus is built on, the elevation change from bottom to top is quite significant, especially at the altitude of SLC. Most people will probably find the new dorms to require less walking because they are on lower campus.
You need a meal plan in either location so there’s no savings to be made there (unfortunately the MHC which has full kitchens in each apartment is not a freshman dorm next year). It’s still TBD whether the new Kahlert dining room will be any better than the old one (which is a pretty low bar), but I assume that at least you won’t need to go outside to get there.