University of Virginia-Main Campus Top Questions

As a commerce student, I have been fortunate to be in some smaller classes where class participation and student-professor interaction is strongly encouraged. While the students are competitive, they also cooperate as much as possible when it comes to studying for tests or doing projects. Overall, while everyone is still working to get the best grades possible, students also manage to balance their social lives with their studying.

Pretty competitive academically. Don't be surprised if you graduated high school with above a 4.0 and get B's or the occasional C (depending on the class and your level of commitment of course). Class sized range from the massive 300 person lectures (mostly for intro classes) to less than 10 (performing arts and higher levels).

The school work at UVA is diff a challenge. The education is diff geared towards both learning and gaining the skills needed to obtain a job after college. However, the class settings can be a bit over-extended at times. The proff. can know your name, however it is up to you whether this will happen. The prof. do not really reach out to their students as much, however they are open to help if you are seeking it. The students are very competitve esp in comm. school. Lastly, the most interesting class i have taken is arabic, the teachers are wondering and the class interaction was amazing. Worst class would have to be statistics. In general i am not a fan of graduate students teaching classes, they tend to be busy and preoccupied with their studies, as was mine. Also, when graduate students teach classes, they do not have the experience and skill needed to professionally and intellectually hold a class to its full ability, and they lack the skills needed to interact with students as best they can.

UVA has one library that is open 24hours a day during the week and there is definitely always someone in it no matter what time it is. Classes are tough but with the right attitude and when you find a subject you actually enjoy studying, you can succeed. Professors and especially t.a.'s will be very helpful if you go to them and ask for help.

Academics are very important here at the University. In order to participate in their respective sports, athletes must have good grades. There is no way around it. I have had my fair share of large lectures as well as small classes. For the large lectures, there is usually a mandatory discussion section that places one in a small class of 20 or so students to discuss the week's lectures as well as the readings. I have found that many students do have intellectual conversations outside of class but it is not all there is to talk about. Here you are free to talk about whatever you want with whomever you want.

RIGOROUS! Don't come to UVA expecting to get by with the same amount of effort you put forth in high school. The classes are intellectually stimulating but require a goodly amount of individual preparation. Expect to do several hours worth of work on a daily basis (2 hours of work outside of class for every 1 hour spent in class, at least). Classes range from huge lectures (as many as 350 people) to small discussions (15 or fewer). Professors will learn your name if you take the initiative to go to office hours. Of course, there are plenty of students who skip class and never do any work. Although such students are certainly in the minority, they are there. Still, the vast majority of uva kids are self-motivated, driven, hard-working, and eager to learn. With a UVA diploma, you can go anywhere. Don't be intimidated either, if you're considering UVA, you can handle the academic load. If you're accepted, you're deserving...and with some work, you'll thrive.

I have really enjoyed studying at UVA. My major Sociology, which is weak when looking at the job market, has still been great and I have actually found many opportunities in that field. Most people actively participate in class and many students participate in intellectual conversations outside of class on a regular basis. The students can be, at times, overly competitive. The competition displayed at UVA can mirror what would be experienced in graduate programs such as Law. Students will often times not help out others for fear of possibly raising the curve or other possible reasons. This is slightly rediculous due to the fact that most classes are not curved. Overall, UVA's academic requirements are high but fair and an education at UVA can help you get any job you want. An education at UVA can be treated as learning for its own sake or towards getting a job. Its all up to the student.

Professors of smaller classes know my name. Students study very often at UVA, which can make you feel guilty sometimes by not studying. Students are very competitive. UVA students can have very intellectual conversations outside of class, depending on one's social circel. The business school at UVA is very good: the professors all know my name and the work load is very challenging but manageable.

As far as academics are concerned, UVA has its ups and downs. Because it's such a large school, obviously many classes are going to be very large and, unless you make the effort, the professor will not know you (nor will the professor grade your work--it will be done by a TA)--that's a definite negative. Nonetheless, when you do take small classes, the professors are GREAT--it's as if they know most of your classes are large and work extra hard to make up for it. Every small class I've taken at UVA has been extremely interesting. Favorite class? A Seminar I took called 'Race in American Places'--it was really eye-opening. We studied the layout of different areas around Charlottesville, and the US in general, via Topographic Maps, etc., and discovered that many minority communities are in depressed areas--symbolically 'below' everyone else. Though everyone in the class had varied political views, it was a wonderful experience. We also took field trips to learn of racial history--particularly African-American history--in Charlottesville (i.e. Monticello, Downtown Mall). The class ended with presentations of group projects that studied the racial implications of such things as historical marker signs, UVa Grounds, and even restaurants on the Corner.

The academics here at UVA are rigorous. I and everyone else I know am constantly studying. You will learn to love the libraries here on campus (my favorite is Clark :)). For being such a large schools the classes here are remarkably small. There are those few classes that will have 400 people in them, but for the most part classes top out at about 40 and in alot of cases classes are only about 25 people. This does mean that there are TAs, but we really have some great ones. My TAs are so good that I think they are better than a professor. I am a chemistry education major and I have had some terrific lab TAs and one bad one (you will eventually get a bad one). My first semester orgo TA was amazing he held is office hours every monday night and would stay until all our questions were answered and the night before our orgo lab final he spent 3 hours with us reviewing. Then next semester when my TA wasn't all that great, I still went to his office hours. He would also help us with any questions we had just from our regular orgo class. Likewise I had an amazing Latin TA who was always there to help you when you needed it whether he had office hours or not, he just wanted you to learn the language and love it at least a quarter of how much he loved it(he loved it A LOT). As I said before I am a chemistry education major and the education professors at Curry are just amazing. Classes are small and discussion about any and everything is encouraged. I am not the most vocal of all people, but somehow in these classes I tend to talk a lot. Overall the academics at UVA are amazing, you will rarely find a class that is an easy A (im still looking for that class), but classes are definitely intellectually stimulating and like I said before be ready to study.