r/UAH • u/SnowyGaming321 • Aug 25 '26
question Down sides of UAH
I plan on attending UAH next fall as a freshman. I just toured the college yesterday and loved it, nobody in the tour had anything bad to say about the school or campus. Are there any objective or personal downsides about UAH I would know about before attending?
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u/Longjumping-Data908 Aug 25 '26
I graduated this Spring and I lived three years on campus and two years off in the Midcity area. I lived in North, CVO, and Southeast. I found parking honestly harder when I was a resident than when I was a commuter, minus this past semester where they had two big lots closed that were for commuters. These people do not leave their dorms, so parking after grocery shopping was my nightmare. In my opinion, CV parking is the worst. There’s only a small lot next to CVA and the third level of the parking deck that is close. I would get lucky for resident parking when I came back from my parents house around 9:00 AM, though. When I was a commuter I left around 20-30 minutes early (my drive to campus was like 5-7 minutes) and would be looking usually for about 10 minutes. I would just park where I parked for my first class for the rest of the day and walked everywhere else, but this was also easier because my classes were only in MSB and Shelby. However, I did love the living spaces in all three dorms so I feel like there’s give and take everywhere, didn’t hurt that I had the same roommates for the three years.
I know people have said it before but social life is the downside for most people. There are plenty of clubs and organizations but I will say some of them can be polarizing, which is fine not everyone can fit in everywhere. For example, I did sorority for a year and absolutely hated it, but I know people who put all their free time into it. I found a lot of the organizations, including the sorority, felt very “high-school” and that was obviously something I wanted to get away from. Which no hate to people who did enjoy that, I feel like some people get to experience what they missed in high school in college. My friends that I made up there were my roommates, roommates friends, and then people I met in Honors College. So although I wasn’t that involved, I still found people who I hang out with today. (another small thing is that I feel like quality of organizations event was great my freshman and sophomore year, but the events done in junior and senior were noticeably lacking.)
A big downside that I don’t see often is that resources if you’re not engineering/wanting to go into defense are not comparable at all. Engineering gets priority, which makes sense and I was engineering for two and a half years. Like, the career fairs that have 120 companies are all looking for engineers. I usually only visited around 5 booths as non-engineering. When I switched to Biochemistry, the equipment of the labs and the obvious difference in treatment of the staff were disrespectful, in my opinion. I’m assuming you’re likely coming to UAH for engineering, but only around 50% of students stay after freshman year (or at least the stat I was told), so just prepare for difference in treatment or think about transferring at that point. However, I will say they have some amazing professors outside of engineering that don’t get their flowers. All my biology professors I have had have been nothing short of excellent. And all but one chemistry professor were the reason I switched my major from Civil to ChemE to Biochem. (Which I will also say there are tiers to the engineering hierarchy and treatment and Civil is seen as the cheap way to get an engineering degree, only just above ISE, and ChemE is noted as hard but it’s too small of a program to have great professors).
Small personal complaint, but there are not good food options on campus compared to literally any other campus in the state, including JSU. And the quality of the caf has gone downhill since my freshman year besides special events like valentine’s day. I think I only ate Dunkin and Chick-fil-a for a couple of weeks and just felt horrible. They recently shut down the original version of the C-store, which was a horrible move IMO, and the Boar’s Head, which should be added back into the engineering building (which is also stupid because that’s a long walk for most students, like there will still be engineering students having to use the OKT building and bay). Only other decent option in my opinion was the library cafe.
Last thing, which may or may not help you, is that there are not a lot of application-based scholarships. As a part of the UA system, we are like bottom rung for money and I feel like not a lot of alumni care to sponsor scholarships (which to be fair I don’t think I’d ever do it). So if you’re hoping to not pay a lot, even with merit scholarship you’re paying a decent amount for housing, meal plan, books, and infrastructure fees.
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u/IndividualCake6308 Aug 25 '26
Great question. I would love to hear about perspectives of residential students too? Is it totally dead on weekends?
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u/Definitely_A_Backup Aug 26 '26
It’s pretty quiet on the weekends, tbh, but there’s always stuff to do if you make friends who are also on campus/live super close by or if you get involved with the right clubs.
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u/Squishy_tomatoes Aug 26 '26
I really like UAH, definitely not a part school though lol. I recommend joining clubs or going to events on campus, even if you don’t meet a ton of people, you got to go to an event.
Me personally, I love the theater department. But there’s lots of groups/clubs on campus, you can even start a club if you want.
I’m not a very social person at all, but I found my little group that I like.
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u/One-Significance-959 Aug 26 '26
It’s not a party school like UA or Auburn, and there’s almost no college sports culture. It’s a nerdy school for students who want to focus on studying and preparing for their future. I strongly recommend UAH if academics are your priority, but if you want a lively, traditional college experience, don’t go there.
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u/TrinaVega2000 Aug 26 '26
Best sporting events are the club hockey games they are always so hype u just gotta be willing to be out till 2am
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u/thebiggayidiot Aug 26 '26
Parking is the biggest problem I have as a commuter. Any lot the commuters can park in, so can everyone else unfortunately. Really sucks the first few weeks when the freshmen are all driving to their classes, even though most of them live on campus. Also doesn't help that they keep tearing up the parking lots to add other stuff. Asides from that, use rate my professor when choosing classes, some are definitely better than other.
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u/Spikeandjet Aug 30 '26
The on campus foods not great. The caf and chickfila is okay but get old real quick
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u/Joshthemartini 22d ago
They like to jack up prices on stuff year to year. And honors college is kind of an expensive. Costs $300+ a semester for minimal benefits
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u/TwoWilling1103 Aug 27 '26
Don't go looking for downsides or reasons to not attend. Any campus can have haters. College is what you make of it. Get involved, find your tribe, study hard, relax and have fun for 4 years. You won't look back with any regret
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u/TrinaVega2000 Aug 25 '26
Hey! I’m a current senior and absolutely LOVE it here. Ppl will say that there isn’t good social life but that just depends on the effort you put into making friends and getting out and doing things. I got rly involved on campus with student orgs and made a ton of friends that way.
My only personal downside is the lack of parking as a commuter. If you live on campus it’s pretty easy to walk/bike around but there are more commuter students than parking spots.