<p>I’m a freshman at Pitt, from suburban ohio, and i heartily second what divel says about the buses and that oakland feels like “its own little corner.” You can’t forget that you’re in the city, but i’ve never worried for my safety, not once.</p>
<p>BUT… i have a little note about honors classes here. I’m an engineer in the honors program, and last semester i took honors calc (I & II combined into one semester), chem and programming. The calc class was NOTHING except PROOFS. It was very nonreal, non-useful, especially for a class full of engineers. I dearly wish somebody had told me that before i registered. And my chem class, 0960, started off with over seventy kids. About ten dropped before add/drop was over, and at least ten more withdrew later. At the end of the semester, there were 50 of us left, and only 18 decided to take honors this (spring) semester. Why? Though it was billed as “general chemisty” class, it was clearly a “physical chemistry” class- P-chem is one of the most difficult and confusing chem classes one can take, according to my chem-grad-student-TA, and yet we were learning things that chem majors don’t learn until their junior year. </p>
<p>So yeah, don’t just read the course descriptions, try to ask students who have had the class recently (or do ratemyprofessor.com haha). Best of luck with your decision!! Oh, and if you come to pitt, you can cross register (for free!) and take classes at carnegie mellon, which has a gorgeous campus all in a rectangle around a campus green! It’s beautiful, so if you land in pgh, don’t be disappointed at all.</p>