- Joined
- Oct 5, 2007
- Messages
- 196
- Reaction score
- 0
LIVING
GU is isolated up on a hill at the edge of Washington DC. Because the Georgetown area is so snobbish, the residents blocked a subway station from being built in Georgetown. Thus, once you are GU, you really can't get anywhere. It is too expensive to have a car there. You can live 3 miles across the Potomac River in Virginia, where it is affordable to have a car, but that commute takes 40 minutes each way by public transportation. No joke. And you can forget about driving into GU. Parking is $10 per hour. Overall, not a fun place to be.
ACADEMICS
Biology Professor - Joseph Neale
Positive:
-You can tell that he loves bio.
Negative:
-His exams are short answer which makes the grading extremely subjective They are graded by TA's who are younger than the Post-Baccs and who are notorious for using bad judgment. The grading is very inconsistent from one student to the next.
-His exams rely entirely on his lecture notes, rather than the book, and his lecture notes are written in a form of English that can best be described as on the level of a 3rd grader. In other words, it's very difficult to understand what he is even trying to convey, which is quite bad given the complexity of the subject matter itself.
-I have a feeling that what he is teaching us is not the same material that will be on the MCAT or DAT.
Physics Professor - Earl Skelton
Positive:
-He is retired, has finished his research, and is now just teaching without the distractions of research
-He is a really nice, kind guy
-He is extremely fair. He will never do anything that will give one student an advantage over another
Negative:
-He is getting up there in years, and is getting a bit forgetful. He recognizes it though.
Organic Chem Professor - Jennifer Swift
Positive: NONE
Negative:
-She hates teaching and is all about research
-She makes a ton of mistakes at the board, which makes things very confusing
-The class realizes she is a joke as a teacher and often just talks over top of her when she starts making mistakes at the board.
-Not the way to learn organic chemistry
Tutoring
-They just announced to us that the academic tutoring center had a budget reduction, so guess what happenend? Post-Baccs can no longer get tutoring unless they are basically failing the class. We are treated like second class students.
Facilities
-The GU science facilities look like something from a 3rd world country. They have one lecture hall for all of the sciences. So, you'll be sitting in the same old lecture hall every day. The seats are disgusting and falling apart. Only about 80% of the seats can actually see the overhead projector screen. The first ten rows of seats cannot see the bottom of the chalk boards. Really poor.
BOTTOM LINE
I had other post-bacc options. If I could do it over again, I would have avoided GU. At $30K, you just get very, very little for your money. Bad living conditions, bad academics, bad facilities.
-Stay clear of this program if you can.
-I'm getting really good grades, because I am working very hard, but it is a miserable place to be.
GU is isolated up on a hill at the edge of Washington DC. Because the Georgetown area is so snobbish, the residents blocked a subway station from being built in Georgetown. Thus, once you are GU, you really can't get anywhere. It is too expensive to have a car there. You can live 3 miles across the Potomac River in Virginia, where it is affordable to have a car, but that commute takes 40 minutes each way by public transportation. No joke. And you can forget about driving into GU. Parking is $10 per hour. Overall, not a fun place to be.
ACADEMICS
Biology Professor - Joseph Neale
Positive:
-You can tell that he loves bio.
Negative:
-His exams are short answer which makes the grading extremely subjective They are graded by TA's who are younger than the Post-Baccs and who are notorious for using bad judgment. The grading is very inconsistent from one student to the next.
-His exams rely entirely on his lecture notes, rather than the book, and his lecture notes are written in a form of English that can best be described as on the level of a 3rd grader. In other words, it's very difficult to understand what he is even trying to convey, which is quite bad given the complexity of the subject matter itself.
-I have a feeling that what he is teaching us is not the same material that will be on the MCAT or DAT.
Physics Professor - Earl Skelton
Positive:
-He is retired, has finished his research, and is now just teaching without the distractions of research
-He is a really nice, kind guy
-He is extremely fair. He will never do anything that will give one student an advantage over another
Negative:
-He is getting up there in years, and is getting a bit forgetful. He recognizes it though.
Organic Chem Professor - Jennifer Swift
Positive: NONE
Negative:
-She hates teaching and is all about research
-She makes a ton of mistakes at the board, which makes things very confusing
-The class realizes she is a joke as a teacher and often just talks over top of her when she starts making mistakes at the board.
-Not the way to learn organic chemistry
Tutoring
-They just announced to us that the academic tutoring center had a budget reduction, so guess what happenend? Post-Baccs can no longer get tutoring unless they are basically failing the class. We are treated like second class students.
Facilities
-The GU science facilities look like something from a 3rd world country. They have one lecture hall for all of the sciences. So, you'll be sitting in the same old lecture hall every day. The seats are disgusting and falling apart. Only about 80% of the seats can actually see the overhead projector screen. The first ten rows of seats cannot see the bottom of the chalk boards. Really poor.
BOTTOM LINE
I had other post-bacc options. If I could do it over again, I would have avoided GU. At $30K, you just get very, very little for your money. Bad living conditions, bad academics, bad facilities.
-Stay clear of this program if you can.
-I'm getting really good grades, because I am working very hard, but it is a miserable place to be.
