Rutgers University-New Brunswick Top Questions

What's the most frustrating thing about your school?

Meron

Since the school is so big with an abundance of students, an individual can easliy get lost. Most students complain that they are nothing but a number to the school. From an academic standpoint, it is very easy for a student to lose his/her way, and irreparably damage their grades quickly.

Gabrielle

The issue noted above. This is very frustrating, especially when it affects the financial aid you receive. Having to continually go to another campus or call someone on another campus to try to get something fixed is not acceptable. It's upsetting and frustrating.

Angela

The most frustrating thing about Rutgers is the disconnect with administrators and the financial aid office. When asking questions about policies, they give automated responses and sometimes refuse to handle students directly. Rutgers is a huge school, so when students try to reach out personally in a way that threatens their economics, Rutgers administration can be very quick to dismiss them.

Sana

Most professors are tenured and not willing to go out of their way to help students, especially in competitve pre-med classes. Also, curved pre med courses to fail 20{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} of the class (bio, gen chem, orgo).

Emily

The most frustrating thing about Rutgers University is the size, it makes it very difficult to make friends.

Sara

The sheer amount of people and lack of a cohesive community.

Christina

It's an old school so there is a lot of maintainence to be desired. Also, the school is getting too crowded.

Alexander

The most frustrating thing about the school, is levele of difficulty in the classes. Classes may seem easy by the course descriptions, but in actuality, you have to study hard and read over the text in order to maintain a passing grade. Not only by studying the text and going to class, but also attending office hours allow the cahnce for you to recieve an A in the course. College is a big step up from high school, and this causes you to have to adjust your study habbits and schedules to stay ahead of the game.

Cara

It frustrates me to see how a good portion of students disrespect the university staff and property by littering, and not cleaning after themselves, or not always being cordial like saying please and thank you. The staff is truely kind here and have the students best interest in mind. Sometimes I feel that the students take their hospitality here for granted.

Samuel

The sheer size of the school is difficult to get used to. The bus system intermingling with the city of New Brunswick makes traveling from class to class very difficult across campus.

Sierra

The financial department. The two halves of the department don't seem to comunicate much so things end up getting mixed up and students end up screwed in someway or another.

Nicholas

I can't think of anything wrong with my school.

Kevin

One part was transitioning. They played a charade/waste of time class dedicated to transfer students. After stomaching the boorish hour long classes, I eventually began to stabilize myself with the social environment. As for advising, I had a hard time finding reliable people. Make of the professors I talked to offered facile suggestions that led me nowhere but in a circle. After a while I met a number of astounding professors who encouraged my academic perspectives and offered viable suggestions.

Rebecca

The infamous RU Screw! Because it's such a huge school, lots of little things slip through the cracks, like that prerequisite you didn't know you had to take that isn't technically listed as a required course but without it you can't take that last class to graduate. And despite Lampitt laws and the New Jersey transfer laws, you will still have a difficult time transferring from community college unless you knew right out of high school exactly what you wanted to major in. My best advice is to get a liberal arts associate's degree.

Chelsea

SO BIG!

Zeeshawn

Since Rutgers University is such a large school with many individuals with similar career goals, the scheduling process can get quite stressful. The classes close very quickly, within the first couple of minutes of the registration process. In addition, the distribution phase when they give out special permission codes for the classes is random. You must simply be lucky to be there at the right time and place.

Robert

While it is not a huge problem and does have its benefits, the most frustrating thing about Rutgers University is the incredibly large student body. Having so many students sometimes gives me the feeling of being lost in the crowd or that "just another person" feel. The school's advisors help tremendously to make each individual feel important, however it is nearly impossible to accommodate to every individual, so the phrase "help those who help themselves" becomes extremely relevant at my school.

Danny

The most fustrating thing about my is the bus systems at nights during week

Jennifer

At Rutgers, you really need to take charge of your education because it's easy to get lost in the shuffle. If can be hard to track down a professor for help, and many don't respond to email because they just get too many. At Cook Campus, where I go to school, it's more personable and the professors seem to care more. However, even at Cook, life's changing due to the budget cuts. Cook students are no longer guaranteed housing on their campus, and a large majority of students have a very disgruntled attitude toward the university.

Jessica

I do not have alot to complain about, but something that is a little frustrating is the fact that there aren't as many places to get food late at night with your meal plan as I would like. One signs up for a meal plan that is roughly two thousand dollars, and after 9pm nowhere will allow you to use a meal swipe for food because they only except cash. This is a little frustrating because once the end of the year rolls around, you have a ton of extra meal swipes that don't rollover for next semester.

Stephen

The most frustrating thing about Rutgers would have to be Administration. They are very slow in processing forms and anything submitted by students. This untimely fashion often causes problems for students, more affectionally called the "RU Screw". In the end things seems to work there way straight, but it only comes after wasted time trying to resolve the conflict. Administration is a huge problem at Rutgers.

Viveca

Although I love my university, the size can at times be overwhelming. The size of the university and its East cost flare can be challenging in finding administrative help and guidance. People are not always warm and trusting. Knowing the right people and being fearless is key. We call it the RU Screw; however there is always a screwdriver to fix things.

Ashley

In light of the size of Rutgers University, the bureaucracy can be frustrating. You really have to work to get answers from administration, and often get different answers to the same question. I don't necessarily think this is a bad thing, because it encourages students to be proactive, resourceful, and independent-- skills that are definitely required for success in life after college!

Pandi

The most frustrating thing about Rutgers is my classes sizes. I am currently a Pre-Med student and my General Biology, General Chemistry, General Physics, and Organic Chemistry courses all are in lecture halls with three hundred students or more. If you fall behind or have a question its up to you to catch up or to understand the concept.

Meghan

The unhelpfullness of academic services and the lack of financial aid and available on campus housing

Francesca

The most frustrating thing is probably advising. The advisors don't really seem to care much and just want to quickly get their jobs done.

Ajay

The most frustrating thing, is that as an out of state resident tution is significantly higher for me. Other thigs are the bus systems, the school tends to admit too many students, more than they can handle, and that strains the housing and bus sytems. This results in a lot of delays and buses crammed to capacity, and some students have to live in a hotel nearby because they couldn't get on campus housing.

Rachel

The lack of parking is a big issue as well as the large classes.

Yirong

housing...too many people, and housing is too complicated. Also, it's expensive.

Karol

Assigning characteristics to an unanimated object should not come into play. I strongly believe that each one of us make "the college experience" what we want it to be. Perhaps, what dissapoints me the most is seeing hundreds of opportunities being thrown away by many not mature college students.

Justine

The most frustrating thing are the exams for the science classes like Biology and Chemistry.

Urmi

It is too big.

Jay

Rutgers has an enormous student body. It can be easy to blend into the crowd and go unnoticed for all four years. With this vast number of students, there is also extreme academic competitiveness amongst everyone. Size can definitely pose a problem to someone who is shy or has trouble socializing. However, Rutgers does its best to make the transition from highschool into college go smoothly and offers a lot of clubs and activities, almost all of which are created and run by students themselves, to appeal to a wide variety of interests.

sueda

there are too much work.. and classes are too big to concentrate

Usman

Large class sizes

Cassandra

The deans appear to have your best interests at heart on the surface, but with some, enhanced interaction with them proves that they have no real motivation to assist students, rather their only motivation is their own personal gain and keeping students in line so they (the deans) do not look bad.

Gianni

Because it is a public university, financial aid is mostly given to those who come from lower class families and the student athletes. Middle class families tend to not get any funds for financial aid from the school at all.

Erica

The fact that they don't have enough on-campus housing and that students may have to live in hotels.

Derek

The most frustrating thing about the school is the spread of the campuses. On New Brunswick alone there are 5 separate campuses that classes maybe held on. Sometimes when registering for classes, you may end having classes on 3 different campuses in one day. ALthough they do provide buses for transportation, there is a lot of commute time to and from classes and some days the buses are so packed you can't always get on.

Nicole

Not getting classes you want.

Asia

The financial aid office and the buses.

lily

the chemistry and organic chemistry exams and classes. they are so big that its hard to understand and ask questions at the same time.

Jon

Again because the school is so large many lower level courses have up to 400 students in them, so its hard to get personal attention. The bus system can also be a hassle at times.

Namee

Many campuses and the buses.

Noah

The RU Screw, as it is called, often occurs. This can refer to any number of ways that the university messes you up, such as having many of your classes close when you're trying to register for them or being unable to get proper on campus housing.

Ben

Parking, plain and simple

Jeong

They try to nickel and dime you, and they keep raising prices on everything (parking, tuition payment fees, tuition, food)

Alexandra

It's called the RU Screw, and it happens a ton. Mainly from the transportation department, the financial aid department, and the dining services. Also, it's really hard to get all the classes you need to graduate in time. That's also very frustrating.

Michael

Career help

James

Big hard to find proper sources sometimes.