I am an engineering physics student at the University of Kansas. The university has set-things up to make it impossible for me to graduate no matter what I do. They offer no refund or apology. There are numerous complaints I have, so I will cover them in chronological order.
I signed up for a year-long exchange to Germany in my sophomore year. I was told that I would get help figuring out which classes to take, and that I’d be able to get transfer credit for them. The first issue I had, which maybe should have changed my mind about going on the exchange, is that when I asked specifically which classes I should take in Germany, nobody in the university seemed to know. Each campus official I talked to about this issue sent me to talk to somebody else. I went on a wild goose chase for 3 months from one official to another (possibly a dozen total), and I was eventually directed back to the official who first sent me on this goose chase. So I ended up leaving the USA without anyone at KU knowing which classes I should take, and arriving in Germany without anyone at that university knowing which classes I should take either. I did not learn which classes I was to take until a week before they started, and I had to figure it out all by myself.
I was overconfident in my German speaking skills, so that the exams were very difficult. The tests were timed, so that even if I understood what was asked, it took me twice as long to read the question as other German students, which put me at a disadvantage. In one instance, a question in a thermodynamics final required that I calculate the volume of a piston (piston = kolben), but I did not recognize the German word for piston, so I did not know what was asked. My translator did not have the word for piston, and the proctor for the test (who was naturally a German) knew what Kolben meant, but did not know the word in English. I was not allowed an extension on that test, or a retake, so I simply had to fail it because I did not know what Kolben (piston) meant.
For the most part the Germans were actually very good about trying to help me (much better than at KU). The only problem I had with them was that they were paranoid about foreign students performing better than the native German students, so they offered no help to them. That is a silly fear really, because universities do not send stupid students on exchanges. If the Germans were expecting their own students to do better than the exchange students on campus, then they were expecting the average german to perform better than the cream of the crop in other countries.
Because Engineering Physics is a hybrid major which is not offered in Stuttgart, there were many schedule conflicts (classes being offered at the same time, prerequisites not working out, etc) in Germany which prevented me from taking all the classes I wanted to take. I was there for 2 semesters, but I was only able to take a little more than 1 semester’s worth of classes which were related to my major. Most of the classes which I was able to take were direct translations from English: “Schaltungstechnik 1” for “Introduction to Circuits”, or “Physik 3” for “Physics 3”.
Another problem I had was that the finals for some of the classes I took in my 2cd semester took place after classes started at my American University. So I was simply unable to take a final for a class, but I managed to get another one proctored for me.
So I got back from my year with only half the classes that I wanted to take, and with very bad grades (although I managed to barely pass most of them). In order to get these credits transferred, I was told to bring course materials from the different classes to the heads of various departments (math, physics, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering). Sometimes I was told that the classes were not close enough to the KU versions, and other times I was told that they were close but that I’d need to make up a couple weeks of classes in order to get everything I needed. There was only one class which I was supposed to get transfer credit for without having to do any make-up work (physics 4). In order to do the make-up work for the classes which were close to the KU equivalents, I needed to contact the professors who taught those classes. None of those professors wanted to help me. So the heads of several departments told me that I could get credit for some class or another, but that I’d have to do extra work with a certain professor, but then those professor refused to work with me. So I was just shit out of luck. And then the exchange department blocked the one class which I was supposed to be able to transfer, for reasons which never became clear.
After I found out that none of the classes were going to count for my major, I resigned myself to retaking everything at KU. I enrolled at KU as a freshman with AP credit, so that I got a semester head-start on most of the other students. So although I missed a year in Germany, I was only one semester behind. I figured that I’d take 1 extra class each semester for the next 2 years in order to make up for the remaining semester. That didn’t work out, but I will discuss that later.
After the head of the exchange department learned that I was no longer interested in transferring my credits, she told me that I had to transfer them or I would be prevented from graduating. So I was told by the heads of the different academic departments that my classes would not transfer (except for physics 4), but I was told by the exchange department to transfer them or I would be prevented from graduating (even though they were actively blocking the transfer of physics 4 for mysterious reasons). I talked to the engineering dean, and he told me that he did not care where I got my credits from, just so long as I got everything I needed to graduate from someplace or another. I chose to listen to the engineering dean, but so far as I know, even if I take all the classes I need, I might still be prevented from graduating for some bullshit bureaucratic reason.
I talked to other exchange students, and their experiences were very different (apart from KU artificially deflating grades from other universities in order to make students retake classes, which is a common experience among all KU exchange students). A student who went to the UK actually got to take KU classes at her exchange university. Architecture students who went to Germany were herded into the correct classes from the very start of the program. I was the only one who had to figure out my class schedule by myself. So I believe what happened was that when I told the exchange department what my major was and that I wanted to go to Germany, that they did not have a suitable program, but they pretended that they did because they wanted my money (or rather, my parent’s money). So they took $30 000 from my parents and did nothing with it.
For various reasons beyond my control, I was unable to stick to my plan to graduate in 4 years by taking extra classes. There were a couple classes on my schedule which took place simultaneously. Now I would like to repeat this, because these classes taking place simultaneously are not a fluke of the exchange. I was given a schedule by KU in my freshman year which I was supposed to follow, and some of the classes on the schedule took place at the same time of day on the same day of the week. KU told me as an incoming freshman to enroll for classes which take place simultaneously. I can only assume that this comes from absurd incompetence on the part of the KU administration. There was once a class which I was supposed to take which became full a few days after enrollment started so that I was unable to take it.
There was also a mix-up which was partially my fault. In the senior year, engineering students are supposed to take an engineering elective in the fall which gives them the background necessary to do a project in the spring. Projects are only offered in the spring, so if you don’t take the elective in the fall, you need to go to school another year. This was never explained to me, so I thought I would take my elective in the spring simultaneous with the project (the exchange screwed up my schedule so that I had many more classes to take in the fall than spring). I did not find out until it was too late that this would prevent me from graduating for another year. I think this should have been explained to me at some point, especially because engineering students are not allowed to enroll for the next semester until they have a meeting with their advisor, which I did.
So in conclusion, the exchange department sent me on a phony exchange where it was not possible for me to get any credit for my major. When I got back from the exchange, I was told that I would be prevented from graduating unless I transferred these credits, despite the fact that they could not count for my major. Then there were several schedule mix-ups at KU, the majority of which were the fault entirely of the administration, which postponed my graduation further. I am currently finishing my 8th semester at college, which is the time at which I would normally graduate. However, I will have to go to school for another whole year to take only 4 classes. 5 classes make up a typical semester at KU.
I would strongly recommend against going to KU, or possibly to any American university for that matter. The system is set up so that you can practically only go to universities in your state, which means that universities in the USA have a captive market. The government offers free loans with guarantees (so that the students can’t file for bankruptcy), which results in hugely inflated tuition costs.
There are various other ways universities gouge you apart from tuition. At KU, all the professors assign problems out of brand-new textbooks so that you have to spend $500+ on textbooks every semester, or you can’t do the homework. I assume the administration tells the professors to do this, because in Germany they do not do that. In Stuttgart the professors made up their own problems and provided a list of recommended textbooks which could be checked out from the library. So in actuality it is not necessary for students to spend a dime on textbooks, but American students have to pay thousands of dollars for them anyway.
I have heard from some employers that a few years work experience is often worth more than a college degree. So considering the absurd price of university in the USA (German students were threatening to riot when tuition was to be raised to 500 Euros a semester) there is no reason to go to college unless you need a degree to do your work, like in engineering, lawyering, or medical fields. Otherwise you will acquire a huge debt for a useless degree.
KU in particular treats their students like numbers rather than people. If you ever do anything slightly out of the ordinary, like I did, or even if you take a double major, you will be very sorry. An example for a problem with a double major: I talked to a student taking a double major once who had to pay a $50 fee every semester in order to correct a filing error made by KU. In order to be eligible for one of his scholarships, he has to show that he is making progress towards one of his majors. There is a particular class which is a requirement for both of the majors he took, but somehow this class only showed up in the transcript for one of his majors, so that it appeared as if he was missing that class in his other major. KU never fixed this (at least not permanently), so he has to pay the fee every semester to get KU to fix his transcript so that he is eligible for his scholarship. It is my understanding that in general, KU is known for having exceptionally poor customer service.
University of Kansas Reviews
I am an engineering physics student at the University of Kansas. The university has set-things up to make it impossible for me to graduate no matter what I do. They offer no refund or apology. There are numerous complaints I have, so I will cover them in chronological order.
I signed up for a year-long exchange to Germany in my sophomore year. I was told that I would get help figuring out which classes to take, and that I’d be able to get transfer credit for them. The first issue I had, which maybe should have changed my mind about going on the exchange, is that when I asked specifically which classes I should take in Germany, nobody in the university seemed to know. Each campus official I talked to about this issue sent me to talk to somebody else. I went on a wild goose chase for 3 months from one official to another (possibly a dozen total), and I was eventually directed back to the official who first sent me on this goose chase. So I ended up leaving the USA without anyone at KU knowing which classes I should take, and arriving in Germany without anyone at that university knowing which classes I should take either. I did not learn which classes I was to take until a week before they started, and I had to figure it out all by myself.
I was overconfident in my German speaking skills, so that the exams were very difficult. The tests were timed, so that even if I understood what was asked, it took me twice as long to read the question as other German students, which put me at a disadvantage. In one instance, a question in a thermodynamics final required that I calculate the volume of a piston (piston = kolben), but I did not recognize the German word for piston, so I did not know what was asked. My translator did not have the word for piston, and the proctor for the test (who was naturally a German) knew what Kolben meant, but did not know the word in English. I was not allowed an extension on that test, or a retake, so I simply had to fail it because I did not know what Kolben (piston) meant.
For the most part the Germans were actually very good about trying to help me (much better than at KU). The only problem I had with them was that they were paranoid about foreign students performing better than the native German students, so they offered no help to them. That is a silly fear really, because universities do not send stupid students on exchanges. If the Germans were expecting their own students to do better than the exchange students on campus, then they were expecting the average german to perform better than the cream of the crop in other countries.
Because Engineering Physics is a hybrid major which is not offered in Stuttgart, there were many schedule conflicts (classes being offered at the same time, prerequisites not working out, etc) in Germany which prevented me from taking all the classes I wanted to take. I was there for 2 semesters, but I was only able to take a little more than 1 semester’s worth of classes which were related to my major. Most of the classes which I was able to take were direct translations from English: “Schaltungstechnik 1” for “Introduction to Circuits”, or “Physik 3” for “Physics 3”.
Another problem I had was that the finals for some of the classes I took in my 2cd semester took place after classes started at my American University. So I was simply unable to take a final for a class, but I managed to get another one proctored for me.
So I got back from my year with only half the classes that I wanted to take, and with very bad grades (although I managed to barely pass most of them). In order to get these credits transferred, I was told to bring course materials from the different classes to the heads of various departments (math, physics, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering). Sometimes I was told that the classes were not close enough to the KU versions, and other times I was told that they were close but that I’d need to make up a couple weeks of classes in order to get everything I needed. There was only one class which I was supposed to get transfer credit for without having to do any make-up work (physics 4). In order to do the make-up work for the classes which were close to the KU equivalents, I needed to contact the professors who taught those classes. None of those professors wanted to help me. So the heads of several departments told me that I could get credit for some class or another, but that I’d have to do extra work with a certain professor, but then those professor refused to work with me. So I was just shit out of luck. And then the exchange department blocked the one class which I was supposed to be able to transfer, for reasons which never became clear.
After I found out that none of the classes were going to count for my major, I resigned myself to retaking everything at KU. I enrolled at KU as a freshman with AP credit, so that I got a semester head-start on most of the other students. So although I missed a year in Germany, I was only one semester behind. I figured that I’d take 1 extra class each semester for the next 2 years in order to make up for the remaining semester. That didn’t work out, but I will discuss that later.
After the head of the exchange department learned that I was no longer interested in transferring my credits, she told me that I had to transfer them or I would be prevented from graduating. So I was told by the heads of the different academic departments that my classes would not transfer (except for physics 4), but I was told by the exchange department to transfer them or I would be prevented from graduating (even though they were actively blocking the transfer of physics 4 for mysterious reasons). I talked to the engineering dean, and he told me that he did not care where I got my credits from, just so long as I got everything I needed to graduate from someplace or another. I chose to listen to the engineering dean, but so far as I know, even if I take all the classes I need, I might still be prevented from graduating for some bullshit bureaucratic reason.
I talked to other exchange students, and their experiences were very different (apart from KU artificially deflating grades from other universities in order to make students retake classes, which is a common experience among all KU exchange students). A student who went to the UK actually got to take KU classes at her exchange university. Architecture students who went to Germany were herded into the correct classes from the very start of the program. I was the only one who had to figure out my class schedule by myself. So I believe what happened was that when I told the exchange department what my major was and that I wanted to go to Germany, that they did not have a suitable program, but they pretended that they did because they wanted my money (or rather, my parent’s money). So they took $30 000 from my parents and did nothing with it.
For various reasons beyond my control, I was unable to stick to my plan to graduate in 4 years by taking extra classes. There were a couple classes on my schedule which took place simultaneously. Now I would like to repeat this, because these classes taking place simultaneously are not a fluke of the exchange. I was given a schedule by KU in my freshman year which I was supposed to follow, and some of the classes on the schedule took place at the same time of day on the same day of the week. KU told me as an incoming freshman to enroll for classes which take place simultaneously. I can only assume that this comes from absurd incompetence on the part of the KU administration. There was once a class which I was supposed to take which became full a few days after enrollment started so that I was unable to take it.
There was also a mix-up which was partially my fault. In the senior year, engineering students are supposed to take an engineering elective in the fall which gives them the background necessary to do a project in the spring. Projects are only offered in the spring, so if you don’t take the elective in the fall, you need to go to school another year. This was never explained to me, so I thought I would take my elective in the spring simultaneous with the project (the exchange screwed up my schedule so that I had many more classes to take in the fall than spring). I did not find out until it was too late that this would prevent me from graduating for another year. I think this should have been explained to me at some point, especially because engineering students are not allowed to enroll for the next semester until they have a meeting with their advisor, which I did.
So in conclusion, the exchange department sent me on a phony exchange where it was not possible for me to get any credit for my major. When I got back from the exchange, I was told that I would be prevented from graduating unless I transferred these credits, despite the fact that they could not count for my major. Then there were several schedule mix-ups at KU, the majority of which were the fault entirely of the administration, which postponed my graduation further. I am currently finishing my 8th semester at college, which is the time at which I would normally graduate. However, I will have to go to school for another whole year to take only 4 classes. 5 classes make up a typical semester at KU.
I would strongly recommend against going to KU, or possibly to any American university for that matter. The system is set up so that you can practically only go to universities in your state, which means that universities in the USA have a captive market. The government offers free loans with guarantees (so that the students can’t file for bankruptcy), which results in hugely inflated tuition costs.
There are various other ways universities gouge you apart from tuition. At KU, all the professors assign problems out of brand-new textbooks so that you have to spend $500+ on textbooks every semester, or you can’t do the homework. I assume the administration tells the professors to do this, because in Germany they do not do that. In Stuttgart the professors made up their own problems and provided a list of recommended textbooks which could be checked out from the library. So in actuality it is not necessary for students to spend a dime on textbooks, but American students have to pay thousands of dollars for them anyway.
I have heard from some employers that a few years work experience is often worth more than a college degree. So considering the absurd price of university in the USA (German students were threatening to riot when tuition was to be raised to 500 Euros a semester) there is no reason to go to college unless you need a degree to do your work, like in engineering, lawyering, or medical fields. Otherwise you will acquire a huge debt for a useless degree.
KU in particular treats their students like numbers rather than people. If you ever do anything slightly out of the ordinary, like I did, or even if you take a double major, you will be very sorry. An example for a problem with a double major: I talked to a student taking a double major once who had to pay a $50 fee every semester in order to correct a filing error made by KU. In order to be eligible for one of his scholarships, he has to show that he is making progress towards one of his majors. There is a particular class which is a requirement for both of the majors he took, but somehow this class only showed up in the transcript for one of his majors, so that it appeared as if he was missing that class in his other major. KU never fixed this (at least not permanently), so he has to pay the fee every semester to get KU to fix his transcript so that he is eligible for his scholarship. It is my understanding that in general, KU is known for having exceptionally poor customer service.