Case Western Reserve University

Course sequences are complete garbage. Prerequisites won't prepare you for classes ahead, necessarily. Some classes have sections taught by different professors where the course materials covered is completely changed from beginning to end! (this happens a lot in the math department in required courses. Calc 3 and Diffeq are completely across the board!)

Classes can be incredibly unfriendly and confusing, led by professors more interested in researching than teaching. The entire engineering maths sequence is based on what the Math department wants to do (create mathematicians) and is fairly useless for the engineers. Meanwhile, you get to enjoy being run through the gauntlet in other courses and get healthy doses of confusion dumped upon you by various professors who you may or may not be able to understand. It all depends.

The university is terrible at maintaining everything, and I'm not just talking about lights in the bathrooms. As an engineer, I've prided myself in learning that our buildings are actually falling apart. I had an asbestos abatement team come into my dorm suite on south side in hazmat suits on the middle of a wedsday afternoon while I was studying. I was not informed of this, and they promptly began to set up their tent and drill into the walls.

If you want a good example, check out Millis Schmitt auditorium when you are on tour, then look up and see that the main lecture hall of this university has paint falling off the ceiling in chunks. One hit me on the head during an exam.

Dining halls are perfectly mediocre. Well, unless it is actually 2 am, at which point your options are A- starve. B- vending machine? or C- wander off into the ghetto and visit a taco bell in a crime hotspot. There used to be a white castle but it closed.

You pretty much need a car if you want to live off campus, unless you want to pay the 2 to 3x markup at the only grocery store within walking distance.

Living on the verge of the East Cleveland war zone means that students get threatened at gunpoint for their cell phones and or cars or backpacks all the time. Or you could sit in the freshman doorms on a summer evening with the windows open and listen to see if there are some nice gunshot reports rolling over the endless sea of broken homes.

A look up on the clearest cleveland night will get you at least six stars. Maybe ten. Most of the time, day and night are interchangable. Also, if you get a dorm room close to the ground floor of any building, you have a good chance of it being bright enough to read inside the dorm with the blinds closed, because LOL ultra bright streetlights. Can you put up curtains? No. I had one facing my window sideways. I painted my window black and paid a fine for it at the end of the year. Worth every penny.

Smokers beware, this university does not understand the concept of free choice in this world. There is a ban in the works that will prohibit you from even OWNING nicotine gum.

In conclusion.
I hated my time here
I regret not transferring despite my financial reasons to stay
The weather sucksDon't Go.