University of Wisconsin-Madison Top Questions

While Madison is fantastic, its endowment is nowhere comparable to, let's say, a university like Harvard. We have money and grants constantly coming in, but resources are limited. I have seen fantastic research done by so many grad students and undergrads, but I have also seen projects cut short or the failure to pursue a project due to lack of funding. In this sense, discovery is probably stunted, and while Madison's biotech is world-renowned, this emphasizes that fact that even more discoveries and more innovation could be cultivated if there was more money.

Located on a sprawling 935 acres, the campus can be a challenge to navigate between classes. With 40,000 students attending the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the campus is often crowed which complicates transportation across campus. The large population of students can seem overwhelming for a new student. Joining clubs, social groups and campus organizations helps with socialization and campus engagement making the huge University apear smaller.

The worst thing about my school is that if you don't drink alcohol there can sometimes be not much to do on the weekends. There aren't any movie theatres or bowling alleys etc near campus.

This particular university is very large and is at times difficult to make acquaintences.

My college was exceedingly large. The smallest of my classes had about 50 people in them -- so they weren't small classes at all. Many had hundreds of people in them. Even getting around campus could be difficult; you need a large amount of space to accomodate all those people! It never felt cozy to me. Also, most people are from a small or medium-sized town in Wisconsin, and it rarely felt like they were friendly to outsiders. In a lot of ways, small town beliefs prevail, even at a world-class institution like Madison.

It is a little too liberal for my more conservative tastes. The price is getting hard to swallow, too.

I think the worst thing about our school is the academic advising and some of the professors. I have switched majors 3 times, and have had more than 5 different advisors. I feel like I don't get any help from them because they are too concerned about their research, or have way too many other students' problems to deal with because we have 40,000 students on campus. The professors teach classes of 400 sometimes, so it's really hard for them to remember you, and therefore get a letter of recommendation.

The size and confusing organization of campus. Much of the campus is spread out over a large area so it can take a long time to walk to class and initially the organization of campus can be confusing to new students, I find its helpful to carry a map of campus with me at all times even after I've learned my way around there are always others that ask for help.

There is not as much emphasis on career advising as I would like there to be.

Personally, I think the large class sizes make it more difficult for me to grasp subject matter and concepts as swiftly as I might in smaller classrooms. Even though many lectures have discussion sections, I prefer to learn and review material more often than once a week (which is the typical frequency of discussions). Additionally, smaller classes help me to stay on top of my work and I usually ask many questions which cannot be as thorougly answered by professors in lecture halls. Plus, I enjoy hearing other students ideas and opinions regarding the material.