Dropping in to say "hi"

[JoJosMom]

Hello, everyone. I realized that I haven't been here in forever, and I thought that I would say "hi." Last winter, in the thick of college applications, my mom became seriously ill, so I really didn't have much time for forum posting and I guess I lost the habit. To update everyone, my daughter is now a freshman at UAH (but home now for Christmas-YAY!). She had a number of good choices, but we ultimately went with low cost. She is RIDICULOUSLY happy at school, and for that I am grateful. My opinion on UAH is mixed, but it's definitely worth what I'm paying. If anyone has any questions about it, feel free to ask. 🙂

 

[Miss Tick]

I was happy to see your wobbly tightrope guy!

[Roadrunner]

Hi!!! Glad to hear she is happy there!

Would love to know what you thinking the school 😉

[JoJosMom]

On 12/14/2020 at 5:47 PM, Roadrunner said:

Hi!!! Glad to hear she is happy there!

Would love to know what you thinking the school 😉

Hi, Roadrunner! Your DS is a junior or a senior this year, no? How are things?

I have many thoughts about UAH. What, specifically, is the kind of information that you are looking for? Overall, I believe that it was our best option, especially in these circumstances (covid and everything shut down and online.) Depending upon what one is looking for and what one's options are, I would probably have some concerns. Also, we are only at the end of Semester One in a very weird time, so some of my "concern" could probably more likely be labeled "caution."

If I had to give a summary, I would say it appears to be a decently good honors college at a decently good state school. It has been *very* impersonal, and I get the impression that the work ethic of the administration and a significant segment of the teaching staff is...lacking.

[JoJosMom]

Just now, JoJosMom said:

Hi, Roadrunner! Your DS is a junior or a senior this year, no? How are things?

I have many thoughts about UAH. What, specifically, is the kind of information that you are looking for? Overall, I believe that it was our best option, especially in these circumstances (covid and everything shut down and online.) Depending upon what one is looking for and what one's options are, I would probably have some concerns. Also, we are only at the end of Semester One in a very weird time, so some of my "concern" could probably more likely be labeled "caution."

If I had to give a summary, I would say it appears to be a decently good honors college at a decently good state school. It has been *very* impersonal, and I get the impression that the work ethic of the administration and a significant segment of the teaching staff is...lacking.

Quoting myself to say that these are *MY* concerns, as a cranky Type A middle-aged woman who views academia rather skeptically. Just to frame things.

[Roadrunner]

2 minutes ago, JoJosMom said:

Quoting myself to say that these are *MY* concerns, as a cranky Type A middle-aged woman who views academia rather skeptically. Just to frame things.

We have couple more years to go, but UAH is on our list of affordable nerdy schools. I hear so much praise for them on this board. 
I am glad she is loving her experience and hopefully next year as normalcy returns, things improve. 

[JoJosMom]

5 minutes ago, Roadrunner said:

We have couple more years to go, but UAH is on our list of affordable nerdy schools. I hear so much praise for them on this board. 
I am glad she is loving her experience and hopefully next year as normalcy returns, things improve. 

Shoot me a PM if you want specifics. 😊

[RootAnn]

There are good profs, bad profs, and really terrible grad students with no oversight masquerading as teachers. DD picks her profs as carefully as she can but sometimes there is not much choice. 

My DD was blessed to have one in person class with @JoJosMom's DD and shared another online class with her & another Hive kid. I do hope next semester is better although I think it'll be next fall before things resemble 'normal.'

[JoJosMom]

2 minutes ago, RootAnn said:

There are good profs, bad profs, and really terrible grad students with no oversight masquerading as teachers. DD picks her profs as carefully as she can but sometimes there is not much choice. 

My DD was blessed to have one in person class with @JoJosMom's DD and shared another online class with her & another Hive kid. I do hope next semester is better although I think it'll be next fall before things resemble 'normal.'

The bolded is the part that is MAKING ME INSANE. There are a number of instructors who are flat-out incompetent, lazy pieces of doo-doo. And that's bad, but what is worse is that it is tolerated, is ignored, and is allowed to continue (this carp precedes Covid.) It's not like it's hard to figure out where the problems lie and to investigate, either-everything's on Canvas. I have no idea what certain department heads are doing to earn their bloated salaries. In fact, I suspect that many people on the payroll are simply banking the money and doing NOTHING. Basically, UAH is very much a publicly funded bureaucracy with too many employees who lack anything approaching work ethic🤬.)

And it's not a question of a good student suddenly getting bad grades, either (which is often suggested in a Facebook page for UAH parents.) My DD is doing very, very well using grades as a measure. But she knows darn right and well when a class has totally sucked and the grade in no way reflects the experience. 🤬

On the upside, though, there are indeed lovely Hive kids and meeting them has been a blessing for my DD, too.❤️

[8filltheheart]

Our dd was very lucky in that she had a really great first semester experience even though her classes were all online.  She had some really good professors and formed study groups with other kids in her major who were in her classes.  I know that several of the other kids in her groups, however, were really struggling (honors English and calculus in particular).

[lewelma]

On 12/15/2020 at 11:45 AM, JoJosMom said:

Hello, everyone. I realized that I haven't been here in forever, and I thought that I would say "hi." Last winter, in the thick of college applications, my mom became seriously ill, so I really didn't have much time for forum posting and I guess I lost the habit. To update everyone, my daughter is now a freshman at UAH (but home now for Christmas-YAY!). She had a number of good choices, but we ultimately went with low cost. She is RIDICULOUSLY happy at school, and for that I am grateful. My opinion on UAH is mixed, but it's definitely worth what I'm paying. If anyone has any questions about it, feel free to ask. 🙂

 

So good to 'see' you! I'm really pleased that she is so happy at UAH.  Isn't it wonderful when you find the right fit!?!?

[MamaSprout]

On 12/16/2020 at 11:15 AM, JoJosMom said:

The bolded is the part that is MAKING ME INSANE. There are a number of instructors who are flat-out incompetent, lazy pieces of doo-doo. And that's bad, but what is worse is that it is tolerated, is ignored, and is allowed to continue (this carp precedes Covid.) It's not like it's hard to figure out where the problems lie and to investigate, either-everything's on Canvas. I have no idea what certain department heads are doing to earn their bloated salaries. In fact, I suspect that many people on the payroll are simply banking the money and doing NOTHING. Basically, UAH is very much a publicly funded bureaucracy with too many employees who lack anything approaching work ethic🤬.)

 

 

On 12/16/2020 at 10:59 AM, RootAnn said:

There are good profs, bad profs, and really terrible grad students with no oversight masquerading as teachers. DD picks her profs as carefully as she can but sometimes there is not much choice. 

My DD was blessed to have one in person class with @JoJosMom's DD and shared another online class with her & another Hive kid. I do hope next semester is better although I think it'll be next fall before things resemble 'normal.'

How pervasive is this? For example, is it mostly freshman-level classes where some carefully planned AP/DE/CLEP credits could get around the worst of it, or is it pretty much all the way through?

[RootAnn]

Well, I can only think of one prof my DD has had that was terrible & that was a 300-level foreign language class. Wait. I thought of another, but she teaches an easily skippable CLEP/AP class. Some debate on the quality of the low level physics prof (skippable through AP, I believe) but there is a high quality (tough!) Prof alternative.

There are definitely profs that are known as ones you shouldn't take where rate my professor would clue you in along with amazing professors & some that are just fine but not exciting.

I don't think there are any more than at any other U based on reading Reddit at several places. Some schools are handling covid better than others. Some professors are handling remote teaching better than others. I think UAH has not handled it as well as they should have from a remote teaching perspective or a scheduling perspective (because many kids would prefer to have their spring break days available as single days off across their calendar as 'mental health' or catchup days).

All of this is IMO. YMMV.

[Tree Frog]

My son was very fortunate to have had mostly good professors this semester. The worst prof was the one who taught only 7 of the 10 units in the syllabus. Ds is concerned about the follow on class next semester and is planning to self teach those 3 units this break so he's ready to go next semester.

I think this is a problem at most universities, not limited to UAH. My dd attends one of the biggest universities in the country that has been on the news recently due to a 400 level class cheating scandal using Chegg. She said the class was really struggling, the  grad student wouldn't answer emails, the professor had office hours that changed seemingly daily and didn't announce the changes ahead of time (and he didn't return emails either). When the issue was escalated to the dean, the dean said the students needed to figure out it with the prof and that his office wouldn't get involved. Dd said this was a business class for minors and the well respected business school didn't really care about any of the minor classes. What is a student to do at that point? I don't condone cheating, but neither do I condone the university's lack of communication.