<p>i saw a similar thread on the Stanford board and found it very enlightening, useful and honest. I was hoping people who knew UA could share the same. I think it would be interesting! Obviously not everything can be a bed of roses and shouldn’t be. Thanks!</p>
<p>Need quarters everytime I have to do laundry? It was quite cumberaome last time I was there before coming back. I had to go to wellsfargo just to get my quarters.My sister’s schools dorm cost included laundry cost so when she heard this she was surprisrd a bit. I m not sure if this kind of thing is common, though.</p>
<p>Another one is Paty specific. The building needs serious maintenance. Many window seals are not working, some windows dont even open, and I saw many doors that were chipping away. Also… the smell wasnt good.</p>
<p>You can pay to use the laundry in the dorms with your Bama cash.</p>
<p>Wish rather than having Fall break in late October, that UA would just have one long Thanksgiving break. I also wish that they used the Ferg for more social things. At my oldest son’s U, the union held free movies every weekend, had a student type lounge where something was always going on (karaoke, cookie decorating, etc.), and used the big ball room for special shows and various other things…once they even turned it into a roller rink. Love these opportunities for get-togethers, especially for freshman.</p>
<p>My older son always complained about the food in the dining halls. Too salty or fried for his tastes. But he loved Fresh Foods.</p>
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Need quarters everytime I have to do laundry?</p>
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<p>@paul2752
No, you can use your Bama Cash…just load it onto your Action Card. Your parents can even load it from their home via the internet. </p>
<p>The machine that you swipe is on the wall…each machine is numbered, so you put in the number of the machine and swipe your card…and the cost deducts.</p>
<p>This thread may prove helpful in that certain complaints will turn out to be just misinformed and can be corrected.</p>
<p>(one year a frosh WRONGLY thought that Bama didn’t have volleyball intramurals…lol…so wrong!)</p>
<p>@kjcphmom </p>
<p>I agree…and maybe with a new president that will happen. Dr. Bonner was a HUGE fan of the Fall Break. I spoke with her at least twice, maybe three times, about it. I guess there are studies that indicate that a Fall Break provides time for students to R&R and do better the second half of the semester.</p>
<p>My argument was that if that is true, then instead of starting Fall semester on Wednesday, start it on Monday and then do both…Fall Break and full week off at T-giving. </p>
<p>The funny thing is…in recent years, Bama has had to close school for a few days for several spring semesters (snow, ice on roads, BCS, tornado), but has never had to close days during Fall semester.
(the year of the tornado, that semester ended about 8 days early…and all finals were cancelled)</p>
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My older son always complained about the food in the dining halls. Too salty or fried for his tastes. But he loved Fresh Foods.</p>
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<p>That was a complaint with Lakeside, don’t know if that has improved. It’s been a couple of years since any of my kids have eaten there.</p>
<p>My kids strongly preferred Fresh Foods, Burke, and Bryant dining halls.</p>
<p>It would be great to have an honors section of Bama Bound right before the Fall semester starts so that out of state students don’t have to make a separate round trip during the summer to get the best chance of honors courses. Also, it would be nice if the course catalog on MyBama had a option to search for all courses with open seats. I think the students can see this when they register but I haven’t found this option when I’m searching as a parent/guest.</p>
<p>Laundry: You can use your ACT Card with your Bama Cash on it. They are also so smart that if you put in your phone number it will text you when your load is finished. </p>
<p>My daughter actually preferred using quarters for laundry when she lived on campus last year. </p>
<p>I like the Fall break idea. It does give them a small break even if they stay in town. Thanksgiving break doesn’t bother me as sometimes the profs do cancel classes far enough in advance to plan that. But, with the Iron Bowl, some kids do not go home or their families instead travel to Alabama to see them and spend Thanksgiving in Tuscaloosa or somewhere close by. Last year we flew to Bham, picked up D and headed to Gulf Shores. This year we went to Tuscaloosa and stayed there for the week. </p>
<p>@mom2collegekids @TxNewCollegeMom
Thank you. Now I feel smarter!</p>
<p>@AlbionGirl </p>
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<p>Send that recommendation to Dr. Sharpe. For awhile, there wasn’t one in July, but we asked for that to accommodate those who attend HS’s that don’t get out by early June.</p>
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<p>does anyone know who should receive that recommendation? You might first try asking HelpDesk and see if they can direct you to the right group.</p>
<p>Airport shuttle times - lot of room for improvement there. Should be start earlier, go later, and run more frequently. </p>
<p>Concerning the shuttle: UA is open about changing the times for the shuttles, They have done this in the past. There wasn’t any early morning shuttles when my student first attended, leaving those who wanted to take the very early (usually cheaper) flights with only private transportation as an option. I wrote several emails and suggested that others do the same, eventually an earlier shuttle was added.</p>
<p>However, now I saw through posts that the earlier shuttle is not on the list, that UA requires at least six people to book in order to have an earlier shuttle.</p>
<p>I think that another email writing campaign is in order from current parents. Most parents will not book the very early flights if they do not have an available shuttle listed (private transportation is more expensive)… I believe that you (parents) need to once again request that the early shuttle definitely be included on the list so that parents feel secure about booking these earlier flights. As I recall, once the early shuttle was listed, it was full.</p>
<p>I would start making inquires now, and start an email campaign before the school year, since this process for changing the schedule did take some time to complete.</p>
<p>I found that the early flight to the Northeast had the best prices and connections. </p>
UA is good overall, most of my complaints are just nitpicks.
- Using Birmingham Airport, it would be much nicer if there was commercial service in Tuscaloosa. Parking at BHM is expensive and the shuttle is hit-or-miss.
- Fresh Foods. The food itself is great, but the facility is not capable of handling the volume it receives, considering it was built last year that's bad. The service is slower than molasses in January.
- Chemistry- Based more on difficulty rather than relevancy.
- Presidential dorms don't have built in parking, they are NEWER than Ridgecrest South that does have it. No excuse not to.
Yes, it would be great if Ttown airport had scheduled service. Right now, it only has charter with all the Tide teams being the #1 customer.
Several years ago (maybe 10?), someone wanted to bring scheduled service to that airport, but there wasn’t enough support to sustain.
Don’t know if now that Bama has doubled in size and there are a lot more businesses, if there could be some scheduled service. Likely if there were, the times wouldn’t agree with all that need them.
Having the Mercedes plant likely hasn’t helped because while it’s in the county, it’s in Vance so why backtrack to the Ttown airport rather than just continue on to B’ham airport.
Weird that FF still can’t handle increased capacity. Was last January the first month it was open? If not, why would Jan be unique?
Good question as to why the Presidential dorms weren’t built with underground parking…anyone know?
Spring Break 2015 shuttle has 4 am options on both Fri March 13 and Sat March 14…and very late (11 pm) return on both Sat March 21 and Sun March 22.
http://housing.ua.edu/on_campus/shuttle.cfm
Having to justify to people asking why my high stat son went to University of Alabama compared to other more “prestigious” schools that accepted him and having to explain that UA is not a racist school with many educational opportunities such as Honors, CBH, Emerging Scholars, UFE, STEM to MBA to name a few as well as offering great merit scholarships.
If you are OOS, you will be asked these questions as a parent and student.
@voiceofreason66 I can relate to your post.
^^^
Yes, those are frustrating, but there’s not much, if anything, that Bama can do to change that other than just doing what they’re doing.