University of Rhode Island Top Questions

I really like the staff at URI. Teachers although not all of them, are very helpful. In addition i feel like the advisors really do a good job of keeping you on track to take the courses you need. The material is tough but it is college so you should expect that to begin with. I would definitely say URI does a good job of preparing students academically as long as you actually do the work.

I am a huge fan of the academics at URI. Many classes are in large lecture halls and involve taking notes from projecting screens with power points. In these cases you will not have much of a personal relationship with the professor unless you frequently attend office hours. Other classes are on a much smaller scale. If you attend small classes it is very likely that you will find some type of admiration of many professors. Most are very informative and helpful, and I have never met one that I didn't enjoy. Participation is comfortably encouraged in multiple classes, especially those at an honors level. If your GPA is 3.3 or above, I would highly recommend signing up for honors courses as often as possible. They are more interesting, interactive, and usually don't have exams. My favorite course was an Honors Tutorial on Traditions of World Religions which was inspirational to say the least. If you have difficulty academically, it is not hard to find help. Aside from office hours where you can meet one on one with your professor, many classes include twice a week SI sessions where a teaching assistant goes over topics already learned in class, clarifying any questions students have. There are also tutors available in Roosevelt hall. Overall, I have not found any problems academically at URI.

I believe the academics are a little below the norm. I don't think it will stay that way for long, however. I compare U.R.I. to my old school, The University of Massachusetts at Lowell, and the overall level of academia and challenge is lower. There is a greater difference between requirements and majors than I've noticed in other schools. Also, the teacher you have greatly shifts how much you'll learn. For example, I am an Economics major and when I was taking macro my teacher was not good and provided no challenge. This made my future studies harder. If I had a different teacher, Dr. McIntyre for example, I would have learned much much more. I feel as if U.R.I. is still accepting many students that are hoping to coast through college and this makes class participation minimal and professor interaction outside the classroom difficult.

This is an incredibly broad question, but there's an important issue at the heart of it that will help in understanding an academic experience at URI. Remember, URI is a public state university that people generally are not quick to associate with prestige. This leads several major archtypes of professors and students that teach at and attend a school like URI. There are professors who are just starting out and hope that they can advance their respective careers beyond URI, professors who found themselves unable to do just that and had to "settle" for URI, professors who are obligated to teach regardless of their desire (ex. researchers and graduate students) and professors who are well aware of what kind of school URI is and choose to teach there for that reason. It is important to note here that none of these are inherently better than any of the others, and you will likely have a professor that fits into each of these archtypes before completing a degree. However, the background of a professor is incredibly influencial on things like approachability, enthusiasm, relatability, and how knowledgable they will be in helping with any given problem a student may present to him or her. Knowing something about a professor also gives them all the more reason to know something about you, and some of those relationships will be absolutely invaluable later on as graduation nears. Some of the professors in the last category are absolutely incredible people who can answer any question about the academic process (or defer to the exact person who can) and do so willingly and enthusiastically. This is, of course, a rare breed of human being in general. Some of the best and most helpful professors I've had were simply recent graduates who still remembered how they learned best in school and applied that to their own classes. There are plenty of professors who do not fit any of these archtypes, and some people find them fantastic or terrible because of this. The other thing to remember is that your milage will always vary. I have heard incredibly negative things about most of my favorite professors, and some of these things were very justified. Knowing your professors goes with knowing yourself. The major archtypes of students at URI are too many to fit in one list: stoners, Greeks, people with athletic scholarships, people in school because their parents told them to, people in school because they had no better ideas, so-called "dumb" kids who worked as hard as they could in high school and were ecstatic to get into college at all, kids who could have worked harder to get into a more prestigious school but didn't care enough to (more on this later), people attending on their parents' dime, people attending on the governments' dime. All of this blends into academics. Describing "the academics at your school" entirely depends on your approach to college. If you are going to get a degree because you like a -subject-, then you will probably find that subject at URI. Pharmacy, marine biology, and nursing are among the standout programs if you are invested in getting a quality education in your field of interest (which you probably should be, if this is your appraoach). If you are like me and enjoy learning and thinking and applying skills but not enough to like the idea of applying all that to a single field for the rest of your life, then you will likely join the academic department that you get the most out of. Particularly interesting here is the attitude in the departments that grant the typically "useless" degrees. Almost member of these departments is so because they enjoy what they do and get more out of it than anything else they have encountered. The point is this: the quality of departments at URI seems to vary wildly. And while some of the stories I've heard about the chemistry department make cameos in my nightmares, some people will get more out of sticking to their subject no matter what while some will get more out of being part of an environment they thrive in. There will come a point where you will need to decide on one, both, or neither.

Most of my professors know my name. All of my favorite classes are within my major, and all the classes I don't like are math classes. Students study pretty often, and class participation is common. The conversations really vary. Students are competitive, most unique class I have taken is color science. My major is Textile, Merchandising and Design. The department is great and very helpful. I feel like the schools academic requirements are weak, should be stronger. My department gears education to jobs after school.

Academics are very good at the University of Rhode Island. Since clinical graduate programs are so competitive for my major, I make it a point that professors and staff in my department know my name. They are very friendly and very helpful. My favorite class had to have been Spanish. It may not be apart of my major, but I enjoy learning other languages. I am near fluent in Italian and have studied abroad, but I decided to take Spanish as an elective course and it was very enjoyable. I like doing things when I am not required to do them. Reading is a prime example of this ( I hate to read when it is assigned but I love to read for leisure). Spanish was not required for me since I already finished my language requirements but I decided to take it as an elective and also I like a challenge. It was interesting trying to switch from Italian to Spanish and try to not keep referring to Italian when reading or writing. My least favorite class was economics. I always found it boring, even in high school so I never really paid attention and suffered for that in college. I had to follow the text book religiously in order to understand the terms and formulas the teacher spoke about in class. It is rare that I do not like a class and this was one of the few but only because it contrasted with my interests. Class participation is highly regarded at our school. It is a part of our grade and most days (minus the days before holidays and long breaks) the classrooms are full. Some classes every single seat is taken and no one else is aloud to enter the class. They have strict rules on the amount of students per class. I surround myself with good people who have a positive and promising future and therefore a lot of my friends study a couple hours a day. We normally get a room in the library together or go over each others houses to do homework after classes. Most students are fairly committed to studying considering how the rooms fill up in the library and sometimes even all of the tables are occupied on all levels of the library. I believe that students have intellectual conversations outside of class. We normally intertwine fake propositions with our school work. For example, my friend is a business major, another a communications major, and another an engineer. We always joke about the processes and strategies we would take to open a bar with a psychological firm in back of it or some other funny thing like that. On a more serious note, we talk about things that were interesting in class that we learned or help each other with an outside idea to a homework assignment. Sometimes a completely new perspective being brought in could spark a whole new string of opportunities. Students in my department are pretty competitive because only 5-7{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} of applicants get accepted and so one must be ambitious to go anywhere with their undergraduate degree. As for other majors I am not too sure but it is seen more as students working on projects together rather than being competitive. The most unique class I've ever taken had to have been Philosophy of Art and Beauty and that was when I studied in Rome. Prior to this class I had been completely turned off to philosophy but it gave me a whole new outlook and now it is my minor. We looked at different pieces of art and read different compilations of various philosophers and interpreted how they would view the artwork. It was really unique and cool. My major is very competitive. There are many other aspects that are less intense (such as behavioral, school, or counseling psychology). I am focused on clinical psychology and the programs after undergraduate are extremely hard to get into. My department has been very helpful in preparing me to take the GREs and helping me get all of my necessary requirements together. I spend time with some of my professors outside of class for academic reasons. One of my previous professors is who I am conducting independent research with this semester, another was the overseer of the psychology peer advising program that I helped advise for, and another is leader of the Psi Chi Honors program I am in. I see them at meetings, luncheons, and appointments. The school's academic requirements are fairly easy and not very time demanding. If people want to slack, they can and still get by and pass. I don't believe in doing that though, it is all about harnessing skills and information and if they want to pass that by they can. URI let's students learn and progress at their own pace. The education at this school is geared toward getting a job. We have people come in and speak in our classrooms, workshops with graduate students, and internship opportunities well publicized. The University of Rhode Island has very good resources and career goal directions (this could possibly be because it the state with the highest unemployment rate).

Like in any other major school, in bigger lectures the professors are less likely to know students on a first name basis, but a good suggestion would be to meet with teachers after class to speak with them. My favorite class(es) has been in the philosophy department with a specific professor. I enjoyed the content, style of teaching, and assessment nature of the class. My least favorite has been probably in the chemistry department because the material to me is very dry. Depending on the class, such as in honors level classes, the students speak intellectually and compete with one another. In these classes the participation level is fairly high.The most unique class I have taken so far is my Economics: Competing Traditions course in which I got a different perspective of my major. In terms of my major's department, most of the professors of economics are well educated and informative, though some are tough graders. I try to spend time with professors either after class or during office hours. I believe the academic requirements at this school are sufficient for well-educated and willing students. Certainly, education at this school is geared towards getting a good job in good profession, especially with all the research and intern opportunities available.

I find that academics at URI are what you make of them. If you simply go to class and do your homework and study on your own, yes you'll pass the class, but that might be all you get out of taking that class. If you talk to the teacher outside of class, meet them in their office just for some good conversation, if you make study groups, and put your self out there, you can come out of the class with so much more than a basic understanding of the subject matter, and new colleagues and mentors that will be valuable connections after graduation. I find that the honors classes really allow for the most intellectual class conversations. A lot of the normal classes can be too large to have a good conversation, but the smaller honors classes allow for that and really let you interact with everyone in the class. I've had some extremely though provoking conversations in classes like Philosophy and Literature, The Origins of Fantasy, and the Honors Colloquium: Are You Ready for the Future?. These are the classes that really allow you to grow as a person. And I should add that anyone is allowed to take honors courses, even if you're not in the honors program, and I encourage everyone to try at least one.

I find that academics at URI are what you make of them. If you simply go to class and do your homework and study on your own, yes you'll pass the class, but that might be all you get out of taking that class. If you talk to the teacher outside of class, meet them in their office just for some good conversation, if you make study groups, and put your self out there, you can come out of the class with so much more than a basic understanding of the subject matter, and new colleagues and mentors that will be valuable connections after graduation. I find that the honors classes really allow for the most intellectual class conversations. A lot of the normal classes can be too large to have a good conversation, but the smaller honors classes allow for that and really let you interact with everyone in the class. I've had some extremely though provoking conversations in classes like Philosophy and Literature, The Origins of Fantasy, and the Honors Colloquium: Are You Ready for the Future?. These are the classes that really allow you to grow as a person. And I should add that anyone is allowed to take honors courses, even if you're not in the honors program, and I encourage everyone to try at least one.