University of Wisconsin-Madison Top Questions

What's the most frustrating thing about your school?

Andrew

The most frustrating thing about my school is the amount of money I have to pay. I am an out-of-state student and I pay 3 times as much money as an in-state student. It frustrates me that I have to pay more money to attend a world-renown university but pay more money simply because I live out of state.

Ana

Being at a Big 10 can be a little intimidating; for example, my huge lectures are pretty difficult and don't involve a lot of direct communication.

Nicole

The most frustrating thing about UW Madison is that minorities are given special treatment. Other students that are not a minority have the same academic standings or better than some and do not recieve the same benefits that the minorities recieve.

Ashley

The most frustrating thing about my school is the size. It is very large and it is easy to get mixed in with a large lecture. The large size can be frustrating but at the same time without its large size a lot of the opportunities available wouldn't exist.

Kristen

The most frustrating thing about UW-Madison was having to leave once I graduated. The atmosphere at UW-Madison is full of school-spirit and acceptance. There is also never a lack of things to do on campus between volunteering, shopping, going out to eat, hanging out with friends, and going to concerts among other things.

Dani

The drinking culture is really big here and finding things to do on weekends that aren't alcohol related can sometimes be tough. Also, if you are placed in a dorm notorious for drinking you can't really get away from the drinking culture and if you are placed in the nicer dorms you don't get much of a social life at all. Unless you love to party, socializing can be somewhat difficult.

Erin

The most frustrating thing I have encountered are the buildings and room numbers. Buildings can have multiple basements, main floors first floor mezzanine floors. One time my class was on the "second floor" and I had to walk up 3 flights of stairs. Because Madison doesn't believe in elevators, the whole mix-up of floors is frustrating.

Kiley

While I can find little fault in the University of Wisconsin - Madison, the most frustrating thing about the school is transportation in the winter. It gets very cold and there is heavy snow for most of the school year, which makes it hard to get around. There is free bus transportation, but it becomes unreliable and behind schedule during the winter months. While this problem is not directly under the control of the school, the weather makes it hard to get to class on time or want to go to class at all.

Lisa

Only the poor academic advising bothers me

Rachel

The most frustrating thing about Madison actually is the size as well. Because there are so many students, grades can get very competetive. This means that many of the classes require a lot of work. Many hours a day can be spent doing homework, studying, or working on projects. This was something I expected, but still was overwhelming at first. Although there are many times students can become very frustrated with the work load, the university offers many resources, such as awesome libraries, free tutoring, and office hours with professors and teaching assistants.

Laura

A lot of people would probably answer this queston in the same way that I do: the tuition. I know that $20,000 a year isn't as bad as it could be, but coming from a single-income family of 8 makes paying even that difficult. I think that the cost of room and board is the most expensive and should be lowered to encourage more students to attend college.

Jamie

I'm currently an engineering major so I'm taking class in th Engineering buildings. Also, I'm a freshmen so I still live in the dorms. I live in the dorm thats the are the far east side of campus and the engineering buildings are on the far west side, so it is almost a mile walk to get down there.

Lucy

The options at UW-Madison are endless. With interesting and exciting professors in all the fields there, it is hard to pick just one major to pick as a course of study. Perhaps the personal fault is my ability to find so many subjects interesting, but I also feel that in this respect, UW-Madison is sometimes too big. It's easy to choose going to a big school if you don't know what you want to study because it seems like it would have the most choices, but too many options makes it equally hard to choose.

Michael

Expectations are high and everyone is smart! I have always studied hard and performed at the top of my class. It was different for me to come to school and have to work my butt off for a "C"! While I say this is a frustation, it is also the reason I chose this university. I am earning a valuable degree and learning so much about life in the process.

Carrie

You don't get much personal attention academically at UW-Madison. Even TA's have a lot of students to be aware of, so it takes a lot of effort to get one-on-one attention. You usually have to join a study group for this. And sometimes your questions go unanswered.

Zoe

One of the most frustrating things about my school is the racial divide among students. Often times, the white students socialize only with other white students and minority students chose to stay solely with other minorities. This divide causes a tension between the racial groups when issues relating to race are brought up on campus, issues like affirmative action or funding of minority organizations. It is a self-segregation process that is not conducive to gaining the full benefits of this diverse student body.

Mindy

I get frustrated with the large size of the campus sometimes. I know people at other schools that have only a five minute walk to class. I, on the other hand, have to leave 20 minutes before class in order to get there on time. Knowing I have such a long, cold walk ahead of me doesn't help me get out of bed in the morning.

Kristina

If we are paying so much to be here, why can we not choose to pair certain majors? It is very frustrating to be interested in two majors, for example graphic design and journalism, and not be able to pair them as a double major because of technicalities. I realize there have to be guidelines for which courses students need to take for each major, but we should have the freedom to choose our futures. I love this school but I hate the governing behind it; it simply does not seem that it is in the students? best interest.

Cecelia

The class material is extremely challenging especially for students like me who come from inner-city public schools. The material is far more advanced then I feel I was prepared for attending a public (non-college prep) high school.

Francesca

The most frustrating thing for me is trying to find good clean fun - any parties on campus always involve excessive amounts of alcohol. Not only am I underage, but I also don't like to drink and don't enjoy being around very drunk people. It's difficult to find crazy fun things that don't include drinking and all of the things that come with that. Any parties I have been to that don't have alcohol are usually religiously-affiliated and only play Christian music, which of course is not exactly exciting to dance to.

McKenzie

The most frustrating thing about University of Wisconsin Madison is that with all the opportunities it is difficult to find time to participate in all the activities and academic responsibilities that one would with to participate in.

Emily

The most frustrating thing for me is the size of my dorm. I love going to a large college, however I wish I had been placed in a smaller dorm so I could have a small community feel within the high population of my school.

Sarah

Walking to class in the winter.

Kimberly

The most frustrting thing I find is registering for classes. It is very difficult to enroll in some of the pre-requisite classes that I need to further my educational goals.

Gretchen

The competition in classes is difficult. You go from being the top of your school, to having to work very hard to achieve a lower standard of success. It is not impossible to do well in school, but natural talent is often necessary in order to succeed.

Colin

The homework.

Karilyn

Most of the classes are very big (maybe even up to 600+ people in one lecture), so it's very hard to get help if you need it.

Gabriela

The most frustrating thing about my school is that the minoritiy community is so small, and there is not enough diversity. It seems as though everyone knows everyone, and that's what makes the university much smaller and it can be annoying.

Tatyana

Size and wheather

Danyelle

Sometimes I feel the culture is based too heavily on drinking.

Andrew

The most frustrating thing about my school is the contradictory behavior of most of the students, who focus heavily on getting excellent grades and are preparing for great careers, but at the same time there is a huge focus on binge drinking and partying, which for some people is very harmful for their grades and careers.

Katherine

It is not very personable, which I'm assuming has a lot to do with the size. Before this school, I attended two that had about 7-8000 students; this one was much larger and it seemed to come across much more readily that students were more often "just numbers."

Stephanie

It's easy to be lost in the crowd, but it's not so big that there's always somthing going on.

Samantha

Some professors tend to forget that we're not taking only their class and they give us quite a large workload. Sometimes it's hard to put in 100{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} effort into everything they give us. There are only so many hours in the day.

Kurt

There are so many opportunities and things to do that you sometimes do not realize the opportunities that you really want to take until it is too late and you are already nearly finished with your collegiate career. Sometimes there is a heavy emphasis on drinking and it becomes difficult to find people who are interested in doing something else.

ASHLEIGH

THE COLD WINTERS!!!!! MORE SNOW DAYS WOULD BE GREAT TO COPE WITH THE TERRRRRRRIBLE WINTER WEATHER

Frances

Since it's in a downtown area, there are few grocery stores/department stores/movie theaters on campus.

Alexandra

The most frustrating thing about my school is that being a conservative in one of the most liberal universities is unacceptable to a people who believe in an acceptance of all people, when that is not the case here on campus.

Ryan

Getting into the classes I want

Maria

big classes, professors often seem so smart they are unattainable.

Lindsay

The crazy overachieving competitive students in some of my classes. They are a little ridiculous.

Kevin

Lack of attention to Humanities.

Andrew

The lack of diversity

Emma

The student-proliferated segregation of in-state and out of state students.

Hilary

While the professors are very knowledgable and there are a wide variety of classes offered, it is difficult to feel engaged in a class of 300 students. It is also hard to receive individual attention from counselors, professors, and other staff when the student body is so large. In order to get extra help, you really have to search for assistance and be flexible.

Stephanie

Classes are very competitive and the courses are pretty tough.

Emily

Profs always seem to schedule office hours when I have class.

Kim

For me, it has been being pegged by the administration by my race. I was automatically enrolled in a program that expected you to fail and had mandetory meetings for freshmen and their advisors. My freshman year my advisor did not even bother looking at my transcript before telling me I should sign up for trigonometry (I had already completed AP Calc in high school). My sophmore year I recieved a new advisor, who put a hold on my records (preventing me from signing-up for classes) because I had failed to meet her for my FRESHMEN meetings! It sucks!

Meg

What I find frustrating is the overwhelming feeling that your best may not be good enough. There is continuous pressure to maintain a good grade point average, but one "B" can make it drop alarmingly close to a 3.0. In addition, students feel the need to be involved in as many things as possible, volunteer, get a prestigious internship, and all the while stay afloat in schoool work. It's enough to stress out even the most multi-tasking gifted of students.

Anne

That not everyone who wants athletic tickets gets them, and its pretty expensive to go to games.