Grand Valley State University Top Questions

GVSU lacks diversity.

The worst thing about my school is how much it costs to go there.

The thing I hate most about Grand Valley State University is the paper thin walls of the dorms! I'm only half joking, but in all seriousness there isn't many bad things I can think of. I can honestly say I don't have any major concerns. The only thing that comes to mind is that I can't understand some of the teachers because they have heavy accents. I have to teach myself certain lessons or concepts because I focused my time in class on trying to understand them.

At Grand Valley State University, I consider the bus commute between the two campuses, Allendale Campus (located in Allendale, MI) and Pew Campus (located in Grand Rapids, MI) to be the worst thing. Since my engineering classes are located at downtown GR and most general education classes are in Allendale, I must take the bus to travel between classes like many others. It would be more convenient for me as well as other students to have general education classes at Pew Campus instead of wasting half an hour to commute between the two campuses.

The worst thing about my school was the mixed messages they gave to Computer Science students, who were working in the dedicated CS lab. This was a place dedicated to exploring computers and networks, and we were encouraged to use and abuse the network. However despite this, if a student was too involved in this process, and was truely learning and exploring every aspect of the network, they would get reprimanded for breaking the rules.

The worst thing about Grand Valley is that it is a dry campus so everyone assumes that it is not a fun place to be, so most of the frehsmen leave on the weekends making it hard to meet people and interact with your classmates.

I'd say the worse thing is that the school waters the sidewalks and plants trees that smell awful in the springtime.

There really was no worse part about GV. Honestly, the school is a great environment for scholarship, friendship, and school spirit. In my opinion, the only improvement GV needs is to appeal to a more diverse community of African American and minority students.

I can hardly identify the "worst thing" about my school since I willingly choose to attend and pay for it every day, though I cannot say I actually like the price of attendance. Overall, it has been an incredibly valuable experience that I may not know the full value of till I have graduated and begun a career.

The worst thing about Grand Valley is that some of the biuldings are a little old and the heating and cooling can be the extremes. This can make it a hard learning environment.

Academic advisors are never available.

Grand Valley State University is a very good school and I have enjoyed going there. The professors are good overall and there is a large variety of programs as well as extracurriculars in which you can get involved in. The one thing I have noticed though is that it is always under construction. I can't remember a time when something wasn't under construction. I am glad that the university is always trying to expand and improve but it can also get frustrating after awhile.

They charge for parking.

The worst thing i think about my school is that it is a complete ghost town on weekends (on campus). A lot of the freshman go home and or go to toher universities instead of getting involved and meeting other students here on campus. It's best to stick around, theres lots to do and lots of great people to meet, and freshman year is when you create the friend group you're most likely to carry with you your entire college career.

I attend the School of Engineering, which in my opinion is excellent. However, the liberal arts colleges are lacking. Many fields at Grand Valley are known to be easy, only slightly above a community college level. Grand Valley needs to focus more on academic excellence in their liberal arts colleges if they are going to stay competative.

It didn't challenge my mind enough

The worst thing about my school is that the walls are so thin in the rooms that you can hear everything going on in the rooms above you and in the hallway. This makes things very distracting sometimes and hard to do work.

The one thing I dislike about my school have to be that it doesn't offer Graduate classes in Music. I would love to stay at Grand Valley during Grad school, however GV does not offer any music grad courses. GVSU's Music Department is outstanding, so offering graduate level music courses would be the one thing I would like to change.

I absolutely love that we have an intramural tennis team, and that there are outdoor courts; however, Grand Valley should also have indoor tennis courts. I want to play on campus year-round. We could improve our team dramatically, and compete with other local schools.

In my opinion, the worst thing about Grand Valley is how incredibly expensive it is to live on campus. With the financial aid that I was granted, I am able to attend classes, but I would need almost $7000 in loans in order to live on campus. Luckily, I live close enough to Allendale that I am able to commute from home, but I would definitely have to say that the cost of living on campus is the worst thing about Grand Valley.

I wish people didnt go home so much on the weekends, however I do as well as I am currently workinf 3 jobs to try and pay for college.. sometimes I think it would be nice to have more of a social atmosphere/college experiance, but im too busy working weekends and then studying weekdays and it seems a lot of other students are doing the same.

The worst thing about my school is the music department staff. They promote drinking and discriminate against students who they don't like.

What I consider the worst thing about my school is the feeling that there is never anything to do. Some weekends I feel like every student on campus has gone home. In this aspect, I feel that Grand Valley lacks the social atmosphere I was hoping for when I was deciding on a college. I'm pretty sure if I had chosen another college I would feel more satisfied and would have made more friends at the beginning of the school year. It would be better if I had my own car on campus, because I wouldn't feel trapped.

Entirely the school is great as a whole, but an enormous amount of students would agree that we need nightlife in this small town. Allendale is a very small city, so basically the campus started out as a flat, rolling, grassy land. For the students who are able to drive to Grand Rapids and enjoy the movie theaters and malls it?s only a fifteen-minute drive, but for the others who do not have a car, their night can consist of sitting in the dorm room and watching television.

The worst thing about Grand Valley State University is that a student who desires to take a more advanced art or music class cannot unless they are majoring in one of those areas. This is the worst thing about the university because it limits a students education. All classes of interest should be available to every student.

The worst thing about this school is they spend too much money on construction projects. That money could be spent either on different things or not at all so that tuition is cheaper.

I can't really identify the worst thing about the school, its just the weather here. It gets extremely cold!!

For me, I wish there was more financial aid available.

Ability to get scholarships in sports. I play women's rugby and it is a club sport rather than a varisty sport. I could use a scholarship for this.

It is really expensive. The school is great, but getting financial aid can be difficult, especially with the Michigan economy.

Stress! The work load can be tough to balance with your social life, especially when you get into higher level courses.

The distance between the downtown Grand Rapids campus and the Allendale campus is probably the worst thing. They are both excellenct campuses, but for those students who have to travel back and forth between them, it becomes difficult. There is a reliable bus system, however, which alleviates this problem.

No online courses. It interferes with my rotating work schedule. Also, the kids.

I think the worst thing about my school is how conservative some people are and how unwilling they are to take other people's thoughts and beliefs into account.

The worst thing is there isn't enough parking spaces! There is over 24,000 people here and only 11,000 parking spaces. A lot of students use the bus which is great, but I think there needs to be more buses and more bus routes!

The worst thing about GVSU is the public bathrooms in the older buildings. They are incredibly awkward and uncomfortable to a somewhat fascinating degree. I have never used a public restroom anywhere near as awkward as some of the ones here.

It is pretty much in the middle of no where. Grand Valley does a good job of having a wide range of activities available to students, but if you want to venture off campus, it will take you a good 15 or 20 minutes to get to something of interest.

There is little diversity and it is in the middle of cornfields, so there isn't a whole lot to do on the weekends on campus. There are way more religious and conservative people than I am used to, and I think its kind of confining

There is not much that I consider to be bad at my school. Academically, Grand Valley is challenging while stimulating; teachers are excited about their own work as well as that of their students. If anything, I would say that I have trouble finding people with political and religious views similar to my own, and this is sometimes frustrating to me - that, in my opinion, is the worst part of Grand Valley.

The lack of diversity on the campus.

I hate snow, so I'm definitely not a fan of the weather in the winter. The rest of the year it's excellent, though.

The only bad thing about Grand Valley, in my opinion, would be the cost. I realize any university would cost alot to attend but that is really the only bad thing about it. I love how the city is so close but yet the university is set in a rural area and this allows for easy commute to concerts and other entertainment downtown.

There are no scholarships specifically for my part of the state, which is the upper peninsula of Michigan, but there are scholarships for the other parts of the state. Also I feel they could offer more scholarships for the sophomore level. There should be less expensive housing near campus.

If I had to pick a worst thing about my school, I would choose scholarship availability. A lot are focused on race, disability, and majors, but I come from a lower middle class background and am paying myself (through loans/financial aid, of course) and a broader range of scholarships would truly help.

The worst thing about Grand Valley is walking from the student parking to the different buildings in the winter...burrr!

The only thing I dislike about my school is that I wish I could take all of the couses offered, but I simply do not have enough time!

There are a couple professors who are just here doing thier job. They don't really care about you or how well you do in thier class. There aren't a ton like this and it is pretty easy to avoid these ones. They think that because they get tenure they don't have to try anymore and they don't care about the students. It's hard having professors like these and makes learning not fun.

General ed program and availability of options. most of the time, classes you need are closed.

The weather: lake effect snow, typical michigan weather on the west side of the state.

The 30 minute drive from my house to the school.