Abby
Everyone must take general college requirements which cover a variety of liberal arts areas. These freshman classes are almost always large lecture classes with a few hundred people and recitations. Professors will not know your name until you get into classes with 50 people or less which happens as you progress into a major and more specialized classes. They usually make themselves very accessible to students though with office hours and try to really make sure that you are learning. Students are very competitive but don't really talk about it. Everyone studies regularly but then will meet up with friends for socializing. There are classes that cover just about everything it seems and also special topics classes within each department that change every semester. Within the Journalism School, professors get to know you quickly because you most likely will have them more than once. Building a relationship with them is very beneficial because they will help you find a job and want you to do well after school due to its high reputation. The Journalism School is very much career based learning, but other departments are not at all like that and are based on learning itself.
Elizabeth
Most of my teachers for my smaller classes have been grad students. They've learned my name, especially since those classes are more participation-oriented. However, only a handful of professors have known my name. This is mostly because they teach classes with 200 students in them. But, I rarely go to office hours for professors who teach large classes like these. Most of my professors who I've had for smaller classes knew my name though.
My favorite class so far if News Editing. It has about 20 people in it and is taught by a professor who is engaging and has 30+ years of experience with big newspapers. The class is pretty intense since it's three hours long and twice a week, but I feel like I've gotten a lot out of it so far, and really enjoy talking with my professor about journalism and everything else!
My least favorite class has been Intro to Psychology. The part that I really hated was the instructors. One was old, senile, and went ballistic anyone's cell phone or laptop made a noise and would stop class for ten minutes to lecture us about it. The other instructor was in his 50s and dates female undergraduates. This is common knowledge around campus. I just couldn't get past how creepy and unattractive that man is to learn about Psychology.
Students here study a lot. I personally spend most of my free time, (besides late night weekends), doing homework and studying. Most of my friends are the same way.
Class participation is very common here. For many bigger classes, like political science and history, students are required to sign up for recitation sections that cover related material. TAs instruct these sections and the main purpose of them is to make students discuss readings related to lectures. The amount of participation in these sections highly reflects your final grade since the TA ultimately oversees and assigns it.
I often hear other UNC students participating in intellectual and political conversations outside of class. I sometimes participate in them too. I think this really enriches our college experience since what we're learning in our classes is meant to be applied in our lives.
Students are extremely competitive here. Classes and recitations are somewhat structured like this since we are graded on our participation. Sometimes it's hard to get a word in because there's always one person in your class that talks as much as possible.
The most unique class I've taken is Classical Political Theory. It was a small class with about 45 people and taught by a professor. She structured the class very loosely and we never had tests. We only wrote papers and paragraphs on short prompts throughout the semester. The main component of the class was participation. It was a very hard course since it required a lot of reading and was completely structured around that.
I'm a Journalism major and I feel that I'm in an excellent place to be one. We have an amazing Journalism and Mass Communication school here with down to earth, yet highly qualified professors. They are also very dedicated to helping the students network, which can yield great professional opportunities since graduates from the school are spread out over the world in excellent careers.
I like to go by my instructors' office hours and talk with them about any questions I have about course work or relating to the subject. I correspond with many of my teachers through e-mail too. I've found that for the most part they're prompt in responding and make special efforts to be more available to students. I have also seen several of my instructors around campus and at school events. They seem to immerse themselves in campus life too and enjoy their jobs.
I feel that UNC's academic requirements can be a little crazy at times. Especially the foreign language requirement. We are required to have at least three levels of the same language as part of the general college requirements. You can place out of this through a test on your high school foreign language but most people I know don't. The school's intentions behind this are to make sure that students are fluent in a foreign language when they graduate. I think this is a great intention, but the language classes are extremely demanding of one's time. It's difficult to learn a new language when you're also taking four other courses.
I think education here is geared toward getting a job and learning. A lot of the classes that fulfill general college requirements like philosophy and literary analysis are meant to make us think more about the world and develop our opinions. However, once people get deeper into their majors classes are more similar to real life. For example, my news writing class gave us cluttered information to write a good news story in a time restraint like we would in a real news room. Since completing that course, I've felt I could write in a news room and work under pressure and time constraints.
Brian
If you take the time to meet your professors, you can learn some very interesting things and nurture fine relationships. Most teachers seem to make an effort to get to know students, but those who actively seek out interaction will benefit from the knowledge of their professors to a larger extent. Many students are highly competitive, especially in the Journalism school. Professors and advisors in the J-school are very helpful and supportive, though faculty and staff in the financial departments are quite lax.
Cindy
The academic experience can vary depending on your major. Liberal arts majors tend to be pretty low stress, with the trade off of having some pretty big lectures in your first year, and career services wanting nothing to do with you unless you're a business or econ major. I've had professors in big intro classes who will actually get angry at you if you try to come talk to them at office hours. That said, there are some really great profs to be had for intro classes. I was in an Economics 101 my freshman year that had four or five hundred people in it, and that professor still remembers me - I wasn't even very good at Econ, but I made the effort.(Dr. Byrnes - if you ever need to take Econ 101 make sure you're in his class!). You just have to make the effort to make yourself known to profs and start early - you never know when you'll need an academic reference. USE PICKAPROF. It costs money but it helps. Once you get into your upper level classes you'll start having normal-sized sections again (20-40 people).
I can't really vouch for science majors because we almost never see them. Majors like Bio, Chem, Computer Science, Math, and Physics are famously hard - these kids really don't seem to get out much. As a result, they tend to be really underrepresented in student organizations. UNC seems to be putting a lot more into attracting more science-y people, namely building a lot of new state of the art class buildings, labs, and research facilities.