University of Alabama in Huntsville
By Jessica Ramirez and Wodney Cadet
Huntsville, Alabama is affectionately known as the “Rocket City” because it's home to N.A.S.A and their space program. It's also home to the University of Alabama – Huntsville (UAH).
The University of Alabama in Huntsville was established in 1950, and became a full-fledged university in 1969. Compared to many of the other schools we have visited, it is a relatively new school. Aesthetically, the buildings look modern and the campus has a feeling of being designed from a master plan. None of the buildings seems out of place. As we stroll the grounds there were signs of campus life all over. Student organizations set up interactive activities as well as information and recruitment stations. Fellow Carver students on the College Tour, Zyaire and Paul, joined the interactive activities and they loved it.
UAH has seven academic colleges and with nearly 8,000 students enrolled it is considered a medium size school. The top majors are engineering and nursing, and they have one of the best nursing programs in the state. Students can choose from over 150 student organizations.
To gain admission to UAH, you need a 2.9 GPA, an ACT score of 20 or higher and a score of 1,440 or higher on the SAT. The school offers merit tuition scholarships, and the higher your standardized test score or GPA, the higher the scholarship amount. For example, if your SAT score falls between 1,310 and 1,380, your merit award is 67% of your tuition. SAT scores between 1,390 and 1,510 will earn you 100% of your tuition in scholarship. The same applies to your GPA, so a 4.0 will earn you 100% of your tuition.
The student-to-faculty ratio is 16:1. The graduation rate is 70%, but the graduation rate varies depending on the major. The average students per class is 28 as upperclassmen, but as a freshman or sophomore your classes are larger, mostly if you take the science/biology major.
In sports the school is mostly in Division 2, but recently their hockey team became Division 1. One of our tour guides, Christian, informed us that the sports teams have improved a lot since he's been here.
Our experience was pretty amazing because of our other tour guide, Nicole. She is a nursing major and so was able to take us to see the College of Nursing. She showed us a lot of human dummies in different situations, which gave us an idea of what the practical hands-on as well as as academic course work is like for nursing students.
The history that the school shares with N.A.S.A was fascinating to us as well. UAH graduate student Saroj Kumar, a master’s candidate in aerospace engineering, spent two weeks as a crew scientist and executive officer at the Mars Desert Research Station in Hanksville, Utah.
