Tufts University Top Questions

The academics at Tufts are extremely rigorous.

Academics will take up a large portion of your time at Tufts. That being said, it's as challenging as you make it, and the same goes for most upper-tier colleges.

The academic life was a sad disappoinment. The teachers were all miserable and dishonest. I wouldn´t have hired any of them.

Classes, well they're classes! Don't get it twisted! What ever you take at Tufts : YOU'RE GOING TO BE CHALLENGED!! But you always feel great about it knowing that you've really earned all your grades! But Tufts has an amazing Liberal Arts Program and you will probably find almost everything you can dream of especially through Ex-College! I definitely recommend those classes!!!! Professors are great and will get to know you especially if you want them to. I have gotten to know professors in huge seminars by taking the time to meet with them! If you address a concern and put a face to a piece of work, you'll get the help! Requirements can suck sometimes, but over all you do get a well rounded education even in the Engineering Department. Some of my fondest moments was that of sitting around with friends or suite mates and just talking about a whole range of topics triggered by class discussions: from politics, to culture, to pop culture, etc! I definitely recommend that everyone take a class that addresses the history or culture of another community: My African - American themed Classes were my favorite!!!

I'm not going to lie. The school is hard. Engineers pretty much need to take 5 classes (or 5 full credits) a semester and liberal arts students need to take 4. There are a lot of very hard classes and only a handful of those easy classes you want to take to boost your GPA. That being said, you are actually learning a lot and getting a good education. Even in classes that I bombed I still come out learning a lot of interesting stuff. Plus the fact that there are the 2 schools gives you a huge range of classes to chose from. Like I said before, I'm an engineer but I still took a psych 55: Human Sexual Behavior (or "sex class" as I called it) and it was awesome. Companies and employers know that this is a hard school too. A lot of places recruit at Tufts and some other NESCAC schools. A lof of professors actually do know me by name. It's nice because you will take classes with the same professor a few times if they are in your major. Because of this, they do get to know you by name and thats helpful. They will also make fun of me for my stupid haircuts that I rock at the end of the swim season before I shave my head.

I pretty much took all of the distrubtion requirements through the courses I wanted to take anyway, and I didn't regret the few extra I needed to. Tufts has a big language requirement (6 semesters) --but that wasn't a problem for me either, I'm a language major :) I was very appreciative of the lack of competition at Tufts --especially because I'm pre-med, and that was a big concern of mine. However, even among that subset of the student body, I felt like there was more collaboration than competition. Tufts students definitely have intellectual conversations outside of class. Most of us are dorks in some way, or policy wonks, or passionate about what we're studying-- and we share it with one another. I've said this in interviews that asked me to describe my undergraduate experience-- Tufts's two big "pushes" are internationalism and active citizenship. I definitely felt like those ideals translated into my experience even though I wasn't an International Relations major (the most popular major --in large part due to the proximity of the renowned Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy) or involved in the Tisch College of Active Citizenship. And I'm glad that they did.

For first year engineering students, the experience is a little different than that of a liberal arts student. Most initial classes are intro classes in sciences, which take place in a lecture hall. Despite this, all of the professors were very approachable, and if the student makes any effort to have a personal relationship with the professor, the professors usually responded warmly. Professors are also required to hold office hours during the week, and almost all of them are quite happy to do so. Students are often encouraged to ask questions, even in lectures, and participation only goes up when classes are in smaller numbers. Students often talk or debate points brought up in different classes, but its always good natured and never competitive. Students are generally supportive of each other, and competition is never with the guy next to you, but with yourself.

Academics have a huge range on campus. The intro science classes are ridiculously difficult at times and can be really big. On the other hand, there are plenty of "joke" English classes that only have ten or so students. Participation is common and even required in smaller classes (especially language classes and bigger classes' recitations). Big intro classes are lecture format and discussion is limited to a few questions per class. Some professors really want to get to know their students, but in bigger classes, getting to know your professor is dependent on you and visiting office hours. Difficulty wise, classes are what you make of them. You can take three or four easy classes and rarely do work or spend your life in the library with six hard ones. Again, generally students aren't competitive with grades and it lends to a nice, helpful, study environment. Engineers and liberal arts students have different mentalities towards academics. Engineers are focused on learning skills for jobs, while many LA students don't mind writing history papers, waxing philosophy, and worrying about jobs later. I've noticed also that many engineers choose Tufts because even they have humanities distribution requirements - many want a broader education than more technical schools focus on. But LA students should be forewarned about the intense six semester language requirement! As a side note, the ExCollege at Tufts offers the most interesting classes usually taught by professionals in the real world. I took a journalism class last semester by a Boston Globe investigative reporter. It was awesome, and we even got to tour the Globe and a TV station.

Upper level classes are 100 times better than introductory. Favorite class was a focused clinical psychology seminar. Teachers in upper level classes know your names. Class participation is common, unless the class is early in the morning. Yes ppl have intellectual convos outside of class. Not too much competition. The language department is extremely difficult and the requirement in this area is way too heavy. I got a decent job right out of college, so i think it helped.

Students are competitive but not madly so. Most professers do know your name except for the ones teaching really large weed-out freshman classes. Favorite class: 20th Century Mexican Art History; Least favorite: Calculus II (It wasn't the class I disliked as much as the fact that it was at 8:30 in the morning and I really don't believe grad students should be allowed to teach actual courses...they just don't have the experience necessary.) Education at TUFTs is geared towards both employment and learning for fun, more of the former perhaps, but every single student I've interacted with love learning something new.