Ohio State University

Date: Nov 14 2014
Major: Linguistics (This Major's Salary over time)
First, I'd like to stress that your experience at this university will really depend specifically on your major, academic background, where you live, what your expectations are, and of course, your attitude. It has been said many times that academic advising here is terrible, housing is atrocious and overpriced, meals are not good, people are close-minded, etc… but the truth is that the university is so big that it's impossible to generalize what it's like to go here, hence, *everyone has a different experience*.

I'll try to break each of those topics down as much as I can and give a more "objective" review on this university.

(My major is Linguistics and I'm at the Columbus campus.)

First of all, academics; I think most people would agree that General Education (GE) at Ohio State is horrible. Not even a question. I actually transferred here from Columbus State Community College (CSCC) and so most of my general ed had already been completed (best decision that I ever made). I did, however have several courses left to complete in the Natural Science, Culture & Ideas, and Visual & Performing Arts sections, and I deeply regret not having finished them at Columbus State before transferring. These courses (though not all,) are typically taught in very large lecture halls with 200+ students. I consider myself pretty lucky here, but others had to take Chemistry 1000-2000 with 500+ people in one lecture hall (and I know what all you high school kids are thinking right now,

that's so cool…

), and in my class, the average grade on the first exam was somewhere around 40%. This is not an exaggeration, much less a lack of effort. There are some people who stay up all night to study and still cannot pass some of these exams. And believe me, it is a CATASTROPHE; classes are extremely disorganized, material is not being taught very well, and overall, everything consists of huge amounts of busy work with piles of homework that result in stress and anxiety, and you don't really learn anything in the long-term. All in all, you have to cram giant amounts of confusing material on exam nights just to pass. I also wanted to mention that if you get bad grades at this university for an extended period of time, you get placed on warning and eventually expelled, and most general ed classes will probably send you right down that road. It is VERY hard to even get a 'D' in some of these classes, even in those that are only level 1000 or 2000. However, I've taken level 4000 major courses and ended up with EASY A's and B's. So from my experience, major courses are pretty good and will actually teach you something, while general ed classes are weed-out courses. Sometimes it feels like they WANT you to fail. Overall, most students come in with very little fundamental knowledge of the subject matter, and therefore are forced to memorize and regurgitate everything on exams. This is mostly general ed though. So bottom line is, take *as many* of your general education classes at Columbus State IF AT ALL POSSIBLE and only transfer here when you absolutely must do so, to take your major/professional courses. Your gen-ed classes will transfer without a problem, and even those that do not transfer count towards graduation—which is nice. You won't regret it and it is, again, the best decision that I've ever made. I personally know chemistry and biology majors who graduated high school with a 4.0 and struggled with these general courses here on this campus. On top of that, there's no point in paying tuition at $10,000 a year just to take English 1110. You can do the same at Columbus State for half the tuition, half the pain, half the class-size, half the campus-size, and half the expenses. So please choose wisely…

I do want to mention, though, that Ohio State (Columbus campus) has EXTREME diversity, and it's really the most ideal place for anyone interested in language exchange and multiculturalism. In 2013, I heard that there were about 5,000 international students from China alone, which is about %10 of the entire university population. But if you're really interested you can always find lots of students from other places like Korea, India, Pakistan, Africa, Latin America, etc, here on campus as well. Billions of student organizations, by the way…

Moving on.

Campus & living: Ohio State (Columbus campus), I believe, is ranked as the 2nd largest campus in the US. Something like that. Let me warn you: the winters here are TERRIBLE. Both in the dorms (I heard) and on campus. A large campus means you have to walk very far, and while it is quite pleasant in the spring when it's 70 degrees out, last winter we had temperatures below 20 F *DURING THE DAY*. For that reason, buses are packed from January to March as it is LITERALLY impossible to stay outside, let alone walk for 15 minutes between classes. Additionally, management does not do a very good job clearing side-walks from snow and ice (and who can blame them??) and so it is very easy to fall on the sidewalk or while crossing the streets. The first week of classes in January 2014 had to be cancelled because of that. I'm not blaming anyone or anything, but once again, choose your university wisely; if you attend Columbus State CC first, you won't have this problem as the campus is tiny and everything is close-by. Some buildings on campus at OSU are pretty nice (Hagerty hall, Mendenhall, Thompson Library, and several others that are relatively new) but the majority of them are extremely old and very small inside. Some of my classes were so narrow that it was impossible to even take off your coat without hitting someone. It is THAT dense in there, and while it might not seem like a big deal at first, it will start to piss you off when you need to go to class 4 days a week. Needless to say, campus is beautiful outside, The Oval is great in the summer, and there's always plenty to do on campus. You can find any student organization specific to your hobbies or interests and you will never be bored here. Social life here was never really a problem, even for me considering that I commute from far away and live with my parents. Note however, that there is always construction everywhere and it's really hard to find way around a block that's completely closed off. In my every-day routes here on campus, I pass by at least 3 new dorm-buildings under construction, and I hear that the university is now forcing all 1st and 2nd year students to live ON-campus. This costs about $10,000 per year BTW, and is another reason to attend community college first (as "transfer students" can live wherever they want.) Needless to say, again, housing and food on campus are overpriced and can easily be reduced by living off-campus. I've never lived in a dorm or anything like that, but I've been told that heating and insulation are NOT good there, and it's usually 4 people being assigned into a little cube with a couple of bunk-beds. I've been there once and I definitely agree that it's a great way to make new friends, though. Still not worth it (for me, at least.) Off-campus housing is also a rip-off. Not much you can do about this, though, and it's probably the same way at most state-universities.

Advising: this is the one most people seem to complain about. From experience, most people find that it depends on your major. If you major in a general subject or something popular like… engineering, or are just working on GE courses, then it is true that advising is really bad here. I don't know the exact numbers, but they probably have like 1000 kido's per 1 academic adviser, and I bet your adviser wouldn't even know your name. Now considering that my major is Linguistics, I actually have an excellent adviser that knows me personally, as well as all of my goals, classes, future plans, etc… So if you pick a small major where there isn't as much "competition", you shouldn't have any problems. These advisers, unlike the GE ones, will reply to your emails within a couple hours and will remember all of your problems and life-stories, if that has any meaning to you…

To summarize, this is a great university to complete your major, professional, or grad courses, but is definitely the worst place to take General Education classes (in every possible aspect). The worst classes here are arguably math and chemistry, and you will hear everyone complaining about them. Overall, my advice is: go to Columbus State until ALL of your gen-ed classes (without any exceptions) are out of the way, and transfer here when you need to start doing your major-specific classes. These will definitely be smaller and the professors will be much, much better. Tuition here is roughly $11,000 per year (in-state. Do NOT come here if you're out-of-state unless you got a free-ride), dorms & meal-plans usually sum up to $10,000 per year, and the average loan-taking OSU graduate in 2014 had about $40,000 in debt. Hope ya'll make the right choice!