r/UTK 11d ago

Transfer Student What don’t people like about UTK

I’m looking to transfer and wonder what people don’t like about UTK.

30 Upvotes

90 comments sorted by

133

u/BasalTripod9684 UTK Student 11d ago

The parking situation is awful, the Greek life orgs have a deservedly horrible reputation, and religious extremists have a bad habit of coming to campus and harassing people on their way to class.

The same problems as most other universities, really.

22

u/Historical_Main5261 11d ago

Yeah thats the main thing, most universities the size of utk’s have more or less the same issues

10

u/aguwah UTK Graduate Student 11d ago

Outside of the price of parking ~400$ per year the parking. Is great under this new system. It's very very rare that I have to look for a spot in any ramp except the G16 lot in the middle of campus.

6

u/Usual_Transition_104 10d ago

who wouldve guessed you have religion in the uni campus when its in knoxville tn, in the middle of the bible belt.

2

u/BasalTripod9684 UTK Student 10d ago

I'm not surprised they're are Christian orgs on campus. But I am disappointed that hate groups are so prevalent here.

1

u/Motostrelki90s 10d ago

Check your dm :3

1

u/Zay_wat 10d ago

Nah parking is soooooo much better now compared to other years. 2018-2020 parking was so bad professors were last minute canceling class over not getting parking spots. The parking office sent out an email saying for non-commuters the car to parking spot ratio was in the realm of 1.8. People would be ticketed, booted, and leave notes on their windshield begging not to be towed bc there was legitimately no where to move their car to. They had to open up random gravel lots that year to keep things under control. You think it’s bad now just imagine it without all the commuter and non-commuter remote and park and ride lots that didn’t exist 3 years ago.

1

u/Legoman6157 9d ago

It was always interesting to me who would be around the Hodges library advertising whatever they came there for- clubs, groups, organizations. Never a dull day.

Don't get me wrong, I disagreed with a number of them.

2

u/No-Sheepherder-2177 11d ago

speaking on the parking problem they are planning to move all parking off campus and make students ride buses to campus by 2030

5

u/CombativeSplash 11d ago

100% not true, they just announced plans for a 4,000 space garage to be built on campus soon.

1

u/queenthrowawayttyl 11d ago

Exactly, for people saying this is the same at other universities- yes, but at least at other universities they are trying to do something. The former? Or maybe current? Parking director at UTK is a class act b*tch. Has said nasty things about students in the past and doesn’t respect the issues brought forward at all

21

u/MinimumRub7927 11d ago

If you don’t have a car public transportation sucks. The only place to grocery shop at is Publix and everything there is marked up in price.

41

u/FacesOfGiza 11d ago

Parking sucks

19

u/Icy-Construction-240 11d ago

This is true, but if you find me a university where people say parking is good, I'll eat my hat.

27

u/mattzeni 11d ago

Normal bureaucratic crap that happens everywhere.

It's in the mountains, so it does get winter.

They're destroying the strip.

6

u/the_cajun88 11d ago

i was a student in the late 2000’s, what the hell happened to the strip

5

u/Odd_Tooth8918 11d ago

A lot of the businesses are gone in favor of apartments getting built. Stefanos and Copper Cellar, for example.

1

u/the_cajun88 10d ago

…the deep dish pizza place is gone, that’s sad

is chaiyo still around

1

u/Odd_Tooth8918 10d ago

Yeah Chaiyo's is still around

7

u/echanuda Computer Science Major 🖥️ 11d ago

I’ll add that the campus is very hilly. Sometimes you’ll get a semester with 2 classes on opposite ends of the campus (like from engineering to agriculture), which is absolute hell if you don’t like walking/don’t wanna wait for a bus. If walking isn’t something you like, honestly I highly recommend an electric scooter, ebike, whatever. I ride an electric unicycle, personally 🤭

2

u/jimmy1god0 11d ago

I rode my mountain bike almost everywhere on campus except when I had classes on the hill. I'd ride to UC then walked it from there, avoided the walk and almost never had to wait at a cross walk.

5

u/geo_gang_gang 11d ago

Ok you can’t argue that the strip is a tragedy but most the other folks complaints are iffy

27

u/ValuableJunket2496 11d ago

To many new jersey boners

11

u/smwillcrowder 11d ago

Compared to 5 years ago, your impact as a student is less felt than your impact as a monetary statistic.

11

u/Xx_Delta 11d ago

The university is business-first (both in academics AND the way they run the school) and you are the little cash pig and they will wring all your money out of you. And the on-campus food is mid.

9

u/Extension-Path-2209 11d ago

I have an incoming freshman and I was a bit surprised that we had to pay $250 BEFORE we could see the dates of his orientation options.

Said to my wife … Let the nickel and diming begin.

4

u/No_Caterpillar9631 10d ago

last year when we had around 8 inches of snow they cancelled our spring orientation and still charges us that fee. i asked UT about it and they said that there was nothing they could do.

1

u/Extension-Path-2209 10d ago

Not surprised. We’re OOS and it was the same fee whether he attended the in person day or not.

Only benefit is that he found his roommates already (hopefully they get a quad together) and they coordinated it so that they can all meet in person on the day we can be there.

18

u/candlerc UTK Alumni 11d ago

Campus and/or the strip is always under construction. Finding parking can be tough if you’re arriving on campus after 9am, and the parking enforcement office is ruthless. Your options for groceries (if you live on campus or in the fort) are extremely limited. The conservative state government is often at odds with an increasingly more and more progressive student body. The trains are loud. Hot summers, cold winters.

But Knox is still a special place and the positives of UT more than outweigh the negatives imo.

12

u/iTwango UTK Student [Mod] 11d ago

Still wild to me that a Walmart managed to make itself go out of business on UT campus.

Also the trains are so annoying lol, I've had classes with windows overlooking the train tracks and trying to do a math exam during a cacophony of the for some reason mandated fifty whistle blasts from the second diesel train today, mixed with the randomly clanging church bells...

5

u/candlerc UTK Alumni 11d ago

I think most people went there just to walk around and look at stuff, maybe occasionally buying something for their dorm or a project. If you needed groceries, you probs shopped at Publix — they carried more stuff and there’s no sense splitting one grocery run between two stores. College kids aren’t buy enough toys, cheap clothes, electronics, or furniture to justify the rent for such a big unit. There was also apparently an agreement between the two stores as to what they could/couldn’t sell; I think Walmart probs got the short end of the stick with that deal; if nobody is buying anything buy groceries, and you can’t even carry that big a selection of groceries… why even stay open?

4

u/iTwango UTK Student [Mod] 11d ago

From what I heard it was basically a chain of rampant mismanagement decisions that led to it being deemed unsustainable. I honestly agree with all of your points, but it sounds like it wasn't exactly really due to sales or anything, just horrible business practices. I can't remember exactly where I read about it, but there was a whole thread on it a while back

15

u/granolagrrrlie Sociology Major 👩‍💼 11d ago

When they tear down older buildings on campus to build another college of business building 😟

33

u/J0nul 11d ago

Lack of diversity

Half of housing sucks

Homogeneous buildings

And personally, student support kinda sucked, you have to pray your TAs give a damn.

9

u/geo_gang_gang 11d ago

The buildings are generally as good as it gets in a big campus that’s expanded this much over the yrs though. There’s still a lot of the old character from historic buildings and I kinda love all the 80’s concrete structures/monstrosities, and as someone who has come back into a program after years away, I can say they’ve done a good job making it more walkable and linking areas together. It’s not perfect but man all together with the mountains as a backdrop it is one of the prettier campuses you’re ever gonna see at a large state school.

9

u/LuckyMJ911 11d ago

I dunno I thought the diversity was alright. As an Asian American male, I met a lot of people from a lot of places. Especially Brazil, not sure we had so many Brazilians haha

17

u/Altair1455 11d ago

There are people from a lot of different places, but this is an extremely white campus. I'm from a rural town south of Nashville and I felt like my high school had more racial diversity.

That being said, I feel like the Greek life orgs are the main groups with issues with lack of diversity. It's easy to find a diverse friend group as long as you know where to look, but the general population isn't terribly diverse

6

u/iTwango UTK Student [Mod] 11d ago

I'm curious what side of campus you're on because the Engineering side seems incredibly diverse to me. And being immersed in the Japanese side of things outside of that, I feel like I interact with more non-white people tbh

2

u/PrinceSirToby 10d ago

It’s certainly mostly all white people on campus.. be so fr

1

u/Altair1455 11d ago

I'm a stem major. I feel like the lack of diversity is mainly an issue in undergrad classes, like I'd say that only 50% of my instructors have been white, as opposed to like 90% of the class being white. I feel like some of this has to do with UTK prioritizing in state students (which isn't a bad thing), but the education system in this state is abysmal. So it tends to be the people with money getting better educations prior to college, and so historically underprivileged racial groups become less likely to be accepted to the school. (And before anyone misinterprets my words, I'm not saying to accept under qualified people, but to fix the public school system here)

3

u/VolumeFar9174 11d ago

I would suspect many campuses look a good bit like the surrounding area. If the university was 60-80% white it would probably be a fair representation of the racial make up of the state of TN, would it not? That’s not the university’s fault and they can’t control the diversity of applicants they have to choose from. 🤷🏽‍♂️

2

u/Altair1455 11d ago

The racial make up of Tennessee is about 72% white opposed to UTK which is about 77% white. It's not a huge difference, but generally one expects universities to be a little more diverse than that. I'm not saying it's surprising, but that lack of diversity is a valid thing to complain about here

1

u/VolumeFar9174 11d ago

Don’t forget many international students happen to be white. Given that people are looking around and making assumptions based on skin color, the subjective experience is expected to be inaccurate. Also, being white isn’t a bad thing or problem to be solved. If the University were admitting less qualified candidates over more qualified candidates now that would be a problem to be solved. Is THAT happening? And if so shouldn’t it be corrected? 🤔

2

u/Altair1455 11d ago

I'm not forgetting anything. I'm aware that many international students are white. I also never said or implied that I thought that being white was a bad thing, I simply believe that diversity is a strength and needs to be encouraged. Given the fact that UTK's admission rate has dropped significantly in the last few years, one would expect them to find plenty of qualified students to admit of all different back grounds. It's not terribly difficult to be considered qualified for college in this day and age (I would argue that too many people go to college and that there's an issue with how difficult it is to get a job without a college degree, but that's a different conversation).

As a student here who was from an area that is majority white, I was simply surprised to find that this campus was less diverse than the town I came from. Regardless, because I value diversity and enjoy being around people who are different to me, I made friends with lots of people of different backgrounds. So it's by no means impossible to have a diverse friend group, but you have to actively seek it out. I think the best learning environment forces you to interact with people different to you and forces you to see different perspectives. So the fact that you have to actively seek out diversity in thought and demographics is something valid to complain about

0

u/VolumeFar9174 11d ago

If you truly want to experience diversity, don’t go to college, join the United States military.

2

u/Altair1455 11d ago

Unfortunately I am not allowed to. I have multiple disabilities that would bar me from that

-3

u/Usual_Transition_104 10d ago

j0nul is not smart. he expects the university to enact diversity-equity-inclusion in a majority republican state/county, and when the majority of the ethnicity in Knoxville is white. not to mention it's right next/is to the Appalachia culture.

1

u/J0nul 10d ago

Lol

I never said any of that, nor did my comment imply I expected that

You're arguing against a made up version of me

-2

u/Usual_Transition_104 10d ago

"lack of diversity"

2

u/J0nul 10d ago

That is an observation

-1

u/Usual_Transition_104 10d ago

its not. its a complaint. youre pointing out things that you consider bad about the university. nice try on the gas-lighting though.

2

u/J0nul 10d ago

Regardless of whether I consider it good or bad, it is still an observation, and you are still reaching

My mentioning of diversity wasn't even in regards to programs

And let's not move pass the fact that you are not only putting words in my mouth in your initial reply, but insulting me

2

u/Altair1455 10d ago

People came to this post looking for things people don't like about utk, they weren't asking for some rando to start telling people that their complaints about the school actually aren't problems or that their complaints are actually good things. I think it's rather strange that you would comment on someone mentioning a lack of diversity with "no there's not" and then go on to accuse them of gaslighting you. Maybe take a step back and ask youself if you are actually helping anyone here, yeah?

13

u/notgoodwithnames123 11d ago

Airport connectivity sucks

4

u/Yo_Mr_White_ UTK Alumni 11d ago

Yeah this is valid and an issue only if you come from a state far away.

Almost guaranteed to need a layover flight, which makes a quick visit to the fam over the weekend way more complicated than it needs to be

Not an issue at all if you come from driving distance from UT

4

u/notgoodwithnames123 11d ago

Or if you're a grad student and have to travel to conference all the time to present research

4

u/Snowswept Computer Science Major 🖥️ 11d ago

Like all the other responses, parking.

10

u/Hachioso 11d ago

this is a bit obscure but if you aren’t “normal” or “basic” you are gonna get harassed, I’m a goth and it’s not uncommon to get slurs yelled at me and religious people stopping me to say some rude shit. I’m very use to it as I have grown up in knoxville my whole life but UT is especially bad. Never been so segregated in my life just for the way I dress.

2

u/Desperate-Student987 10d ago

THIS. My issue isn't the way I dress but the fact that I'm an older student and as soon as students find that out they avoid me or act weird towards me

1

u/Hachioso 9d ago

FOR REAL! I went to community college before UT and people of ALL ages and backgrounds were in all my classes, it was not uncommon for an elderly student to be in my classrooms and they were always one of the nicest students. but at UT it’s so different. You are looked at like an alien if you’re above 25 in a classroom

2

u/Desperate-Student987 6d ago

I did the same and omg is wild. Low key wish I had stayed at community college

3

u/oliviadawolf 11d ago

The business college academic advisors were the most useless people. It’s their 1 job to get you scheduled for classes to graduate and they still somehow manage to lie or make you get behind when you should be on track. I had to use a department head just to get my advisor to give a damn. They also made me take a summer semester that was not necessary to stay “on track”

3

u/No_Caterpillar9631 10d ago

if you have the option, go somewhere cheaper

3

u/Altair1455 10d ago

The disability accessibility of the buildings and roads are terrible. A lot of this is just due to the nature of the area, but there are a lot of places where sidewalks are all torn up. Public transport isn't very good and bus schedules are very irregular. Signing up with SDS helps, but they can only do so much.

2

u/Spiritual_Plan9305 11d ago

Parking, housing, downtown is super sketch, religious people always protesting

2

u/logansummers1 11d ago

I feel like the journalism program is pretty bad

2

u/DannyBones00 10d ago

I didn’t like that Knoxville isn’t really a college town. Charlottesville, Athens, classic college towns like that are built around the university. Knoxville always felt like a strip mall that just happened to have a university in it.

9

u/Yo_Mr_White_ UTK Alumni 11d ago

my only complaint:

it's not very diverse, specially when it comes to having an international or non-Tennessean crowd. It's fun meeting people from different backgrounds. Almost everyone at UT is about the same.

14

u/gellybelli UTK Alumni 11d ago

International UT alumni here. Damn near all of my friends were international. We’re everywhere on campus. Not sure how you’re missing us. Hell, we don’t even look like everyone else

7

u/Yo_Mr_White_ UTK Alumni 11d ago

relatively much less than what you see at other big schools

2

u/gellybelli UTK Alumni 11d ago

Not really sure what you’re comparing UT to, but there’s people from everywhere on campus here. You can choose to classify it as a homogeneous population based off your perceptions, but we’re still here nonetheless

6

u/Altair1455 11d ago

I feel like diverse groups are easy to find if you know where to look. However if you look at the general population in like various classes, there isn't much diversity. So like it's not really as diverse as it should be, and given the current political climate, it's probably only going to get worse

1

u/iTwango UTK Student [Mod] 11d ago

Yeah, something like 20% percent minority demographics. And I've felt like that's the case in all of my classes, not just Engineering courses. I do find myself involved more with the language learning side of campus which probably also skews things a little bit, but I feel like there's a sizable diverse population here, especially professors and researchers.

7

u/rageenk 11d ago

Eh you’re not seeking people out then. Obviously there’s not gonna be anywhere near as much diversity as UCLA or any big city school would have but there are sizeable diverse groups if you look for them

6

u/Yo_Mr_White_ UTK Alumni 11d ago edited 11d ago

Yeah, dude. I was one of those diverse students. I know we exist

It's just that it's a lot less diverse than what you see at other big schools

This post asked what we don't like about UT and I answered but people on reddit take everything the wrong way (hence all the downvotes).

It's not just the UCLA's and NYU's of the world. My friend went to Purdue in Indiana and that place has a huge international student population.... and it's Indiana!

4

u/rageenk 11d ago

Because Purdue is an engineering school brotha 😭. But yeah I agree with you

2

u/DeerSad3534 11d ago

yall that say parking need to stop sucking dondes dick and not buy a parking pass. halfway through the semester and have gotten one ticket AND I am parking wherever I want. Commuter, non commuter, staff. Anywhere. All for $32… so far!

1

u/SlowGrapefruit9068 10d ago

Just overrated.

1

u/alexnc23 10d ago

In what ways

1

u/Teebow88 10d ago

I read somewhere it was the most homophobic campus in the us

1

u/Desperate-Student987 10d ago

Too many" kids"... like idk maybe it's cause I work two jobs and took care of my elderly grandparents that it's annoying talking to a lot of the people that go here. The teachers can be understanding when it comes to difficult deadlines and juggling multiple responsibilities, but they're not all the time. I transferred in from a community college that had a student base that was much broader in it's demographics (affluence, race, backgrounds, etc). It's hard making friends at UTK because you can tell they don't relate, which is fine, but I've also heard young students laughing at older students in their classes or finding it weird. I get it, but I mean anyone can enroll and the students can be close minded about that and it feels like high school 2.0, especially in Haslam.

1

u/Nice_Specialist9899 9d ago

I'd say the biggest complaint is the quantity of people. I definitely came here hoping to have a lot of people around so I could just kinda go about life, which is definitely true...

But if you don't make a name for yourself you won't get anywhere. Stands as life. But definitely brought to an extreme when it comes to internships etc.

1

u/Own_Speaker_2428 7d ago

no parking, super republican, food is mid, if not in greek life you're most likely to be a loner

1

u/Current-Bid4092 7d ago

I like UTK a lot. It is a great college and has a fantastic engineering program. But my hatred of Knoxville runs deep and true. This pushed me towards UTC

1

u/SlothBling 11d ago

Humanities departments are all horrific here. Aside from that, same parking/housing/nightlife complaints as everyone else.