UNA is an amazing university!!! Aside from it being the oldest public university in Alabama & a beautiful historic campus, it's a place anyone can become an alumnus!!! It DOES take work, but no matter how old you are, they welcome you with open arms!!! Don't give up on your dreams, I never thought I could, but I made it across that stage 5 years after I began. UNA offers so many degrees online, making it so easy & flexible to get your degree. The professors who teach online are awesome & very understanding.

Beautiful campus. The lion habitat was really cool.

I wish a thousand times over that I would have transferred out of this university instead of completing a degree there

Great school and campus with beautiful scenery!

UNA has progressed since I started and is a college I might have actually enjoyed starting if I weren't finishing. They do have an outdoor center that allows the students to check out kayaks and a Friends of International Students outreach as well now. When I first started, I was paying monthly and the time came when I finished my basics but was an undecided major because I didn't know what I wanted to do and my advisor told me in my meeting with her that I really needed to have a major and that I should know what I wanted to do by then (I was only 22) and if I didn't then there wasn't really much she could help me with. My most recent advisor for my career was much better at advising me. The staff was 50/50. Most of the professors are really good at explaining their material and passionate about what they do. Sadly, my favorite history professor was an adjunct so was only around for that semester. Unfortunately, the majority of the basics professors are the ones that really lacked in making me want to stay there. We had one professor that would count us absent even if a few minutes tardy, which makes first year students feel like they might as well not even be in the class if they're unable to find parking and running late. Graduation, though exciting after so many years was also really irritating. After thousands of dollars and twelve years of working towards my Bachelor's while working full-time, my graduation ceremony had a 6-person maximum. My mom, dad, partner, and three grandparents were able to attend. My three siblings, one of which just started this same college, my step dad, my step grandmother, and all the other people that had supported me were unable to see me walk in person because they're so strict about attendance. Their only response was that they could watch it via live stream as if 1) everyone happened to have access to the internet (which we didn't at my parent's house) and 2) that it was the same thing as seeing the first in three generations achieve a college degree. With as much money as I had spent on getting the degree, I really wanted to be able to have everyone that helped me (mentally and financially) watch me recieve it. To top it all off, the graduation ceremony was delayed by 2 hours, which we didn't find out until we got there so my partner who had only been able to get the morning off work for, had the leave halfway through because of the delay. Less recent, yet, equally irritating: The cost. The fees are ridiculous: mandatory transportation fee for a bus that never came anywhere near my apartment, recreation facility fee for a pool and gym I was unable to use, technology fee though I used my own laptop, camera, Internet, etc. Most obvious: the parking. Absolutely atrocious. Freshmen can't even park on campus, they have to use a parking deck downtown. Everyone else that is allowed on campus or near the university needs to come an hour or two early to circle the parking lot(s)/deck(s) like a vulture to find anything within 5 minutes of their class starting as there's definitely twice as many students as there are parking spots. Not so much a problem for everyone: online classes. For a university that states to have to capability of getting a completely online degree, there are an awful lot of classes unable to be taken online and an equally disappointing amount of classes that are only offered once every two years that make timely degrees a bit hard. This was a selling point for me coming back for my degree while working and ended up being a hassle to actually take classes. The nicest thing about this University is the aesthetics (even though it is too spread out to efficiently get to classes across campus) and they do offer the IDS degree that makes it easier to graduate for someone that swapped majors too many times while still getting a customized program of study that focuses on the things that would actually be needed for their career.