American University Top Questions

Academics at American University (AU) are great. As a communications student, I've had a professor who won two Oscars, an amazing photojournalist and a professor who photographs fashion week in NYC. The professors at American are dedicated, experienced and passionate about teaching. With that being said, as with any university, there are teachers who are better than others. On that note, I feel that it's very important not to simply choose a course because ratemyprofessor.com says the professor is an "easy A." It's also important not to be biased towards adjunct professors. Some of my all-time favorite professors were adjuncts, so it's important to stay open and explore all your options. Even now, as a senior, I have professors from freshman year who still remember my name. There are professors who have met with the class on weekends for field trips and who make extra time after class to chat and answer all your questions. Students are intelligent and passionate. There are so many who are interning on the hill or with non-profits and who dedicate their time to activism and outreach. As the case with any busy college students, there are often times where you can tell a classmate didn't have time to do the reading. However, when it gets down to crunch time, the library is full to capacity and everyone has their noses buried in the books. AU is a great university because it provides you with hands-on-learning experiences. Not many people can sit in a politics class and relate their personal experiences on the hill with class discussions or pop into your film class after their internship with PBS. What I have always loved about AU is that it's a school that allows you to take your learning out into the real world. The university career center is amazing and is always offering workshops to help students succeed. There are constant opportunities to network, take classes, meet with career counselors and to build up your resume. As a senior, I've found that one of the most beneficial things about being at American. I'm graduating not only with a fantastic education, but also with a resume that will appeal to employers. In our fragile economy, this is an incredible asset and something I am truly thankful for.

Academics are great, as I mentioned in a previous question, the small class sizes lead to great discussions and more interaction with professors and students. One class that I took for my Sociology major was called Sociology of Birth and Death. It was so fascinating and really interactive. We took a field trip to a funeral home when we were discussing how society deals with deal and we had a panel of midwives comes to the class when talking about the birth part of the class. So unique! I learned so much! I am currently taking a class called Marketing of Social Change which looks at marketing in a different way than marketing for a big business or corporation. it's really helpful because this is the type of marketing work that I want to do one day.

The professors are skilled experts in their field and teach to student's strengths. They are very understanding and not uptight. It is easy to get A's here.

In my experience, professors have tended to know me by name, especially those teaching history courses. Over the past year, I've really gotten to know many of the names in the History Department from various events that have been held by the faculty there. The professors are generally very open and friendly, and their offices are never hard to get to - they're all in one of the buildings surrounding the quad (the offices of the History Department faculty are in the Battelle-Tompkins building). I love taking the time to talk with my professors about my grades and then move into conversations about our personal lives - it makes learning from them so much more easier. In all, one of the greatest things about about AU's academics is its very friendly, open environment towards learning.

Professors here are great at forming relationships with students to help facilitate their education. It is not difficult to get help from a professor or even start an independent study with one. The students are really into working, getting internships, and participating in classes. A lot of them are future politicians and whatnot, so they just love to get their opinions in. Classes, in that sense, can be really interesting (and entertaining from time to time). It's rarely boring.

American University is a very good quality school, and the classes offered are challenging. However, the faculty are more than willing to help students to get good grades. One of the best things about AU is the caliber of professors that are both knowledgeable in their fields and happy to spend the time necessary with their students in order to make sure everything is clear. The academics at AU, although rigorous, are there to make sure students get the best jobs available at the end of their four years.

I've always enjoyed my classes here. Enjoyed probably isn't a strong enough word-- I've loved everything I've learned. Although I'm a Lit major, my anthropology, sociology, theatre, and psychology classes have also been fascinating. The only class in which the professor didn't know all of our names was my psychology lecture, which I took in my very first semester. That was the only class I had in one of the few lecture halls on campus-- since then, all of my classes have had fewer than thirty students. I've always been amazed by how much my professors remember about our past work and class participation off the tops of their heads. None of them seem like they teach out of obligation-- they all seem excited to share their knowledge with us, and explain things clearly and interestingly. My favorite class that I took here... well, that would be impossible to answer. One of the best was probably the Literary Imagination, in which we read recent works of literature and wrote creative works inspired by the readings. Occasionally, the others even came by to speak with the class. Another favorite was Transformations of Shakespeare. Unlike most Shakespeare classes, we discussed his plays as performance material, not just literature. We saw five local productions of Shakespeare plays-- all very different in tone-- and discussed them, as well as how we would direct or perform them if given the chance. I would never have been so passionate about Shakespeare if it wasn't for that course. My University College seminar class on the Nature of Evil is the most fascinating course I've ever taken, though very heavy subject matter-- fittingly, the next semester, I picked a college writing course on Humor. That was an awesome class, too. Really, all of them were. I've taken two classes on sex and gender, an area I really knew nothing about, and both have changed my world view and the way I think of other people. Even my least-favorite class was still interesting-- Great Ideas in Mathematics. Math was a university requirement, and I was horrified, because I am incredibly terrible at math. This class, however, was different. It was more conceptual and creative, and many of our exercises used logical reasoning rather than actual numbers. The whole class yelled 'WHOA!' on more than five occasions as the professor blew our minds with unbelievable concepts like multiple infinities and dimensions, which our class activities helped us grasp. We ended up learning very high-level mathematical theory, without having to do high-level arithmetic. The only reason why it was my least favorite is because math has always been difficult for me, so I struggled academically with the class. If it had been Pass/Fail, I probably would have loved it. My friends always seem to discuss their classes and assignments, and most seem generally interested in their majors. I've never met anyone who really seemed apathetic about school, although many are very quiet in class. It's often the same people participating in every class, which you could say of any school, but most people here seem intellectually voracious. I've never heard anyone talk about cheating on assignments. I have seen people sleeping in class, though given how busy my friends tend to be, I don't blame them. I understand that AU's changing the way their Gen-Ed curriculum is set up. I don't know much about what it will look like in the future, but right now, you need two college writing classes, a math class, and two classes from five different categories: creative arts, Traditions that Shape the Western World, Global and Multicultural Perspectives, Social Institutions and Behavior, and Natural Sciences. I was exempt from several of the categories because of the AP classes that I took in high school, but the courses that I took all taught me a lot about areas that had previously been mysteries. Most students here have a minor or double-major. I'm only going for a major, in the hopes that I'll graduate early, but I find the requirements for a major or minor pretty fair. It is aggravating how quickly classes fill up at registration-- a commitment to small class sizes means most students don't get the classes they want, and some classes that are major requirements only have one section, which doesn't make sense to me. I think part of it is because Lit is a fairly small department, so there aren't usually a huge number of courses offered outside college writing. So far, this hasn't been a problem for me, although I know one student who worries he'll have to stay an extra semester because there was no room for him in the one class he needed to graduate.

All of my classes at American have typically ranged from 25-40 students. My professors have tended to know all of the students by name. In fact, this semester (today actually) the professor of my "Globalization: Battle of Ideas in the Political Economy" class took us all out to a local restaurant for the last day of class. The professor is very knowledgeable and has many professional connections in the field, yet he still took the time out to take us to lunch and talk to us about a variety of topics (i.e., what our long term plans are, what our job prospects look like, etc.). In addition, another renown professor that I has this past semester had personal one-on-one interviews with each of the students in his class. He has been a guest professor at universities around the world and oftentimes puts students in contact with his colleagues from other universities.

My professors are very friendly and all know my name, though I make an effort to participate in class. I don't study often and do well on tests by just attending class and doing the assignments. Class participation usually revolves around 3 or 4 kids, but professors are pretty laid back about attendance (or at least seem to be). In the School of International Service, the professors are well-known in DC (lawyers, politicians, ambassadors, etc) and are happy to recommend or introduce you to their connections. I think the most valuable part of the AU experience has been the ability to build relationships with professors.

SPA and SIS among the best in the country, SOC and Kogod not bad, CAS for the most part total crap. If you're into politics or international affairs, awesome, otherwise, steer clear.