<p>Hi ! Someone told me that SUNY buffalo is not a good place to go for education because it is mainly a research institute. I’m not sure what that means though, can someone explain? That person said don’t go to SUNY Buffalo unless you are extremely gifted and smart since it is a research institute and not a good place to be educated. </p>
<p>Hi, I’m from Buffalo, and yes SUNY Buffalo (also called UB) is a large research university. The class sizes are huge. UB has more of an emphasis on research than teaching, as one of my professors I worked with over the summer said. (I did research there over the summer, I’m a high school senior). SUNY Buffalo State College is where a lot of my teachers went because they said it is a really good school for education, and a fair amount of students at Buff State are education majors.</p>
<p>@intricatethinker , should I not go to SUNY Buffalo if I am not an extremely smart person? My GPA is a 91.6 in high school and im a senior this year. I’m not amazingly smart though. Is a degree from UB different from other universities since UB is mainly a research university?</p>
<p>Good schools for teaching would be SUNY Cortland, SUNY New Paltz and SUNY Oneonta. Buffalo, however, is a VERY respected school, as well as Binghamton. So if you were to get a teaching degree from either one of those, it would look good.</p>
<p>@Mooswag thanks!! I don’t want to be a teacher and im leaning more towards the Psychology field but I know tou can’t find a job easily with a 4 year degree so I would do 4 years in one of those schools and 4 in another state for graduate. If I went to Buffalo, I really hope I would not struggle too much in classes. </p>
<p>There seems to be some misunderstanding in terminology. The Comment about a research university probably meant that large research universities tend to have large class sizes in freshman classes, particularly in science. This can lead to little interaction with professors but smaller "recitation " sections with grad students or teaching assistants. This leaves a lot of responsibility to the student to pursue extra help or attention. It can leave you behind if you are not a strong student or don’t have good study skills. So a good question to ask is how much of the teaching in first year is done by teaching assistants.</p>
<p>Smaller, or less research based schools have the professors teaching small classes. That tends to suit some students better. That could be perceived as a better learning environment </p>
<p>Saying a college is a good “teaching” college means that there are a lot of education majors. You can major in education at large and small colleges.</p>
<p>If you don’t know what you want to major in, then a large university can offer lots of majors. If you think that you may get lost in a crowd, then a smaller university may suit. Be careful though. Ex: MIT is a “small, research university” and they use TAs and have large freshman class sizes in some departments</p>
<p>@MusicalAsian7 A 91.6 GPA is fine. I know people who got in with lower GPAs, and a lot of them did the EOP program at UB (look it up for more info if you do not know what it is). The matter is not how smart you are, it is if you want to be in large classes or not. There will be hundreds of people in your intro classes if you go to UB, so if you do not want a large size class like that, UB may not be for you. The professors at UB are both focused on research and teaching classes, unlike at a smaller school where the emphasis is on teaching. For psychology you can pretty much go anywhere for college, the choice is up to you. </p>