The University of West Florida

If you're 18-20 looking for things to do at UWF and in Pensacola, good luck. Everything closes ridiculously early and there is hardly anything going on in town. The school markets itself as being right by the beach: it's not. The beach is about 20-30 minutes drive, and traffic is horrible for a city of less than 100,000 people.

The social life is limited to frat and sorority activities. If you're not apart of one of these groups, your best bet for finding friends is to just find somebody randomly in the commons. The school's student body is made up of something like 85% of students from the 3 surrounding counties. That's great, but for the 15% who can't just go home and see their high school friends at their leisure, it makes for a tough transition.

I took all of my Gen Eds and I started my major coursework at this school. The great upside is I actually was instructed by real instructors, save English where it was a Graduate Assistant. All of my instructors were VERY easy to get ahold of, very approachable, and treated you like a person. The coursework was very abundant in information but I never felt like I was in over my head, which I think is good for a Gen Ed class.

As far as my major goes, the Music department is great for select people, just not for me. The program looks to be on the upswing and I would say that it will be top notch in 5 years. There were quite a few "ghost classes" that were required to graduate; classes that were listed in the catalogue and required, but for what ever reason had not been taught in years. I was also left out to dry in my personal endeavors, so I left. I would recommend UWF to somebody who has a clear cut plan with what they want out of a university. The school's anthropology department is probably one of the best in the nation, and if I could start all over again I'd be an anthropology major.