Portland State University

The finest Liberal indoctrination camp in Oregon which does not encourage the exchange of thoughts, ideas, opinions or questions. I find it humorous though, in how they support an environment of «inclusion» but spend (your) money funding exclusion programs and events… A library card is a lot cheaper if you want an education and you won’t have to deal with all the nut-​jobs.

I LOVE PSU! #PSUVIKINGS #ACM #CSMAJOR Fall 2015 is my first term at PSU and I am not disappointed whatsoever. There are plenty of resources and attraction for anybody to become successful at this school, but only if they put the work in.
Within my first month, I have gained access to tutors, academic advisors, won my first Hackathon event with PSU/​CDK, attended scholarship workshops, received free food on campus, participated jn fun club events, worked out at their Rec Center, and much more to come.
I see a very bright future between me and PSU. As I continue to grow here, I want to contribute my efforts to improving their educational community through outreaching to other schools. Everybody in the world needs to know what Portland State University has to offer.

After puttering around campus since early 2011, first as an undergrad and now as a graduate student, I can finally say I love PSU. Is it perfect? Heck no, but what university is?

Do not attend this University if you actually plan on graduating. They are currently tacking additional needed credits on to students’ DARS reports right before the start of each term, making it impossible to graduate. This is specifically affecting students in the Art department. This has happened for the past 2 terms, even with the help and advocacy of department head staff. I understand that department change and overhaul happens as a school grows, but putting it on the shoulders of the students to make up for the University’s lack of forethought and planning is unacceptable. This has not only cost us thousands of dollars, but has set our family back over 9 months in regards to job hunting. We are considering taking legal action of this nonsense continues.

Compared to UNLV, this place is a walk in the park (ha ha haaaa…).
I’ll update this as things change, but I wanted to keep this basic for now.
Class availability:
Not every class will be offered every term. And when it is offered, your schedule should be wide open. If you have a job, finding a class that works with your schedule will be difficult. This place is for people living off of either mom and dad or student loans.
Class size:
This varies. I’ve had a class with 50 people, and right now I’m in a class of 9 people.
Classrooms:
Consistently a problem. Every class I’ve had has moved. The classrooms in the basements are hard to find. If you have a class in Neuberger that isn’t the standard 3 digits, it’s somewhere in the basement. And you could end up in a different building’s basement, since they’re connected. Also, regular technology issues, so we end up moving again.
Parking:
Sucks. However, I figured this out at the end of my first term here. It’s a secret.
Campus:
Awesome.
I’ve had a mix of blah, okay and decent professors.
PSU tries, but I feel like the majority of their students aren’t fresh out of high school. Every class I’ve had has been comprised of people returning to school or continuing their education. I’m a perpetual student with a full-​time job. Be prepared to spend more time here than you’d planned. I see for undergrads they’ve come up with a 4 year timeline graduation «guarantee,» but that’s an answer to their poor class availability.

I not only went to summer school here back in the olden days, but also worked for a year in the Department of Physical Education and Athletics. It’s hard to believe now, but I used to take naps out in the Park Blocks near Smith Memorial, and then took a relaxation class and napped all the way through that. It’s funny now to think about the need for sleep, but I was on the go all the time then and took a lot of dance classes (I could audit them for free when I was an employee).
It’s amazing to go back and visit now. So many changes, so many new buildings, so many new programs. I always have felt that PSU never got its due like OSU and UofO always get, but it deserves the recognition for all the moves forward and how it has managed to educate so many of us (and even keep us gainfully employed). We may say Go Ducks a lot these days, but I’m willing to say «Go Vikings» that continues to change and surprise us!

The disability resource center is awful. They never return phone calls or emails, always sound annoyed, and «forget» your appointments and then complain to you about their schedules. Its been close to a month for two simple accommodations and they just can’t get their act together. I am trying to transfer as a result of their treatment.

When I decided to return to school and finish my BA in psychology, I thought that going to PSU would be a no-​brainer since I live downtown. Boy was I wrong.
Nothing about PSU is easy, convenient or accommodating to a student that also works full time (office hours). After meeting privately with an advisor I was informed that there really wasn’t a lot available weekends and evenings. There were a couple offerings, however I found it rather baffling the way PSU arranges the courses into groupings that I’m not smart enough to explain to you folks here. All I can tell you is that just trying to figure out what classes I had to take aggravated the hell out of me.
I was also really irked at the way my transcript was evaluated. I have ALOT of credits that were simply disregarded that should have counted toward my degree. My previous school (Marylhurst) counted them toward my degree. I felt ripped off.
As much as I would have loved to be able to walk to school, and pay an inexpensive tuition compared to what I’m paying now at Marylhurst, PSU can suck it.
2014 — Review # 76

Was actually here for the weekly Farmers market which was off the hook great. Better than San Francisco, if can believe it, and less expensive. The array of esoteric produce was mind boggling, as was the line up of excellent food stands. I happens to be on the campus of Portlandia State.

Portland State is a reasonably good school for business majors. You learn a lot of valuable information from some very experienced and knowledgeable professors. I only wish they had more ties with the community and placed interns like I hear U of P does. My main reason for knocking PSU down two stars is their financial aid department. It is seriously atrocious and they constantly screwed my financial aid up. This past fall term I had to fight tooth and nail to get my financial aid disbursed because my GI Bill money came late and they thought it was for Winter term. The person I was emailing (it was winter break and I was out of the country) either did not get it, or really just did not read what I was saying, and only after 10+ emails and a few skype calls did they figure it out and finally disburse my money. Now this term (Spring) they are trying to screw me out of my Voyager Tuition Assistance money which has left me in a huge bind financially.
If you are a veteran looking for a school, I’d advise avoiding PSU. The veterans service people are great, but the rest of the school is pretty much clueless when it comes to veterans benefits and needs.

I am writing this review to help those who want to compare Portland State University (PSU) and Portland Community College (PCC). I have attended both and unfortunately have run out of classes I can take at PCC and am stuck at PSU. PCC wins hands down as far as I’m concerned. PCC feels more like a small, private university than a large community college. While it’s true that good professors are hit and miss, like at any college (P.S. RateMyProfessor is your best friend. Use it!), the class sizes are so much smaller than at PSU generally speaking. I found that my classes at PCC were usually around 40, with the rare larger ones being somewhere in the 80 – 90 range, whereas the majority of my PSU classes have 250 people in them. This means you don’t get to know your professor and vice versa, and it makes a difference in how they see you (or don’t even recognize you) and how they can (or can’t) mentor you. And think about the how much energy they have to spend on grading 250 tests, or papers, or whatever — it seems to me that this leads to a lot of burnout, not caring or taking any extra effort, and taking the easy way out by using more lame multiple choice tests and the like so as to lower their grading burden. Also, instructional time is MUCH less. The quarter system already REALLY sucks, but add to that lower instructional time and it is extremely frustrating and difficult to deal with. For example, my chemistry classes at PCC had 5.5−6 hours of lecture time each week — which makes sense because it is a 5 credit hour class normally — but at PSU we only get 3.25 hours of lecture time. We literally race through the material superficially one time, despite the fact that these are tough concepts that a lot of people have difficulty with and need more time to go over. In fact, the General Chemistry classes have the number one leading failure rate of ANY class at PSU, yet they don’t give you the time and tools you deserve in order to be as successful as you otherwise could be. What am I paying for if not to be taught? I can always go buy books on chemistry and try to teach myself, but that’s not the point of paying thousands of dollars to go to college! So now I’m going to rate some other categories and tell you who I think wins in each one.
Libraries, computers, printing, & scanning: comparable — no winner
Food: PCC wins — the Sylvania taco bar is WAY better and all campuses I have attended have kombucha, smoothies, much better coffee, and a fabulous open salad bar. PSU’s food is all nasty crap like Sbarro’s, Einstein Bro. Bagels (where they have NO ingredient lists anywhere and can’t tell you what is in their food), and a bunch of sugary, junky, grossness. The Food For Thought café sometimes has really good stuff, but often not, and the food carts around campus are surprisingly disappointing. Come on downtown PDX, you can do SO much better than this!
Campuses: It’s a tie. PCC has no smoking on campus! (Yay!!!), pretty landscaping, nicely kept, clean buildings and grounds, seems to be very safe (I haven’t HEARD of any sexual assaults, but that doesn’t mean anything), but usually either far away from anything (Sylvania) or in a sketchy area (Rock Creek, Cascade). PSU — yes, it is beautiful, the park blocks are gorgeous, and it’s a short walk from many awesome things downtown. Just watch out for all the potential sexual assault perps (it’s really true — PSU has a major safety issue), smokers blowing cigarette smoke in your face everywhere you turn, and all the sketchy tweekers/​mentally unstable people who hang out downtown.
Leave me feedback about what you have experienced. I would love to see if other people who have attended both agree.

–Billing technicalities SUCK
–The online platform «Banweb» SUCKS
–MURP (Master in Urban and Regional Planning) program is fine, for the most part…
–Great urban location for a campus, good transit connections
–Lowest pay and least benefits for grad student workers
You have to pay every MONTH instead of every term. wtf?! Doesn’t make any sense, we’re paying for school, not a credit card. though I guess that would be a correct metaphor.
The online platform «Banweb» is so stupid. You have to click through 4 times to get to your student account billing statement. At my undergrad institution (UCSD), you logged in, and at the immediate next landing page have a summary of your account – how much money you owe, when it’s due, your holds, etc – but in Banweb, you get none of that information. It’s posted in four lines of normal-​styled text that anyone could miss on the page with all the billing links. Telling you you’ll get charged a 10% interest fee every month, the dates billing statements are generated. It’s so stupid. Maybe it’s an Oregon thing? That you get charged interest on your student account?
Also, in Banweb, when you’re signing up for classes, you’d think when you click on the class code (ie. 64 536) next to a course listing that that would lead to you adding that class, but NO. You have to manually copy and paste that code on the ‘add/​drop classes’ page.
Does PSU lack an innovative IT/​web development team who can make things (the UI) work intuitively???
What’s worse, you have to change your password twice before the end of your second term to use the online platforms – aka this crap! Only after you change it twice that it extends to 6 more months until you have to change your password again.
Not sure about other grad programs, but for MURP, it seems some professors can’t let their oh so holy research win over teaching students. Some classes are from 6:40 — 9:20pm. Did I specifically sign up for evening classes at a community college when I applied to PSU? I think not! Sure, it’s great if you (the student) are also working 9 – 5, but even then, it sucks, too. Especially if you get three days in a row of evening classes.
Also heard that some professors just get an assistant to teach classes because they’re too busy with their own research/​work…
Lastly, concerning the ongoing strike/​negotiation stuff.
It appears that PSU gives the lowest pay and least benefits to grad student assistants compared to other universities in Oregon. Anecdotally, a professor will just dump a class onto his grad assistant. The grad assistant doesn’t get paid for the 30+ hours/​week he/​she now spends getting ready for the class. He only gets paid for the work he does in lab. So everyone loses, the students get a less-​than-​quality education, the grad student assistant is stuck not getting paid but at the same time won’t walk out because he doesn’t want to abandon his students.

I have written over 300 Unilocal reviews over a span of 2+ years, but I have never reviewed a university. While I can’t claim to know the «correct» way of reviewing a school, I’m willing to say that many people who have previously reviewed this school have not done it correctly.
As I look at previous reviews, I see a lot of common types of complaints.
1) The «I came here on a college tour and…» We get it. You came here to visit. You also visited 10 other schools. You picked one of the others. There is always going to be a part of you that wants to stick it to the guys you didn’t pick, just to prove that you made the right choice. But the fact of the matter is that you do not have the authority to evaluate a university based on one day walking around campus.
2) The «four-​year community college.» A lot of people refer to a review from 2007 referring to PSU as a four year community college. If you were to ask me what the defining characteristics of a community college are, I would say it’s a school that provides education to a diverse student body while accommodating for specific schedules and delivering small class sizes. Is it an ivy-​league school? No. Is it in a major athletic conference? No. But the diverse student body, willingness to accommodate, and small classes are not a weakness of PSU. That’s what makes the school great.
3) The «I have a complaint about the _​_​_​department.» This is closely related to the «I have a complaint about Dr. _​_​_​_​, the teacher who gave me an F.» This is not the place for those reviews. Go to
, or be assertive and talk to the department yourself.
The fact of the matter is if you want to go to school in Downtown Portland, this is your choice. And if you want to get a great education and apply it to personal success, that is also your choice. Being driven goes a long way at this school.
Add in that there are dozens of food carts, a farmers market, public transportation, and all the services a student could ask for on campus, and I’m not sure how you could review this school below 3-​stars. It is the best at what it does in Downtown Portland.

I love PSU. I say this as a member of the community and not as a current student.
I love that when I am over 60, I will be able to take classes for free! I love that they host the weekly Farmer’s market. I love that the President of the University is out building relationships with the community and trying to find fresh ways to build and refurbish the campus in partnerships with the city/​county/​state and local business.
PSU has turned from a 4-​year community college (when I moved to Portland 30 years ago) into a real, competitive University with great programs.
This place is such an asset to Portland.

Note: this is a review only for the campus.
Such a cool campus! It surrounds the «park blocks» aka a big park that spans several blocks in length. In the fall, the trees are so pretty… but even year round the campus is so pretty. You wouldn’t think of seeing so many trees and greenery in a place downtown. The campus feels alive and musicians come to play around midday on a stage. There are food carts literally on campus, and throughout the park blocks, and many of them are very good! I found a parking spot easily at the very far parking structure (near 405) on a Tuesday at 10.00AM. But, taking the bus or max or street car is just as easy! Even though the campus is in the middle of a city, I never felt unsafe, especially with all the students around all the time.

I visited on a sunny 65 degree autumn day, and the campus was buzzing and gorgeous. I went just to tour it myself and then use the library to get some work done.
Neat thing: there are food carts on campus!
Needs improvement: wasn’t easy to figure out which building is for which college.
Pretty amazing campus overall and read where they are receiving some significant funding for some high end improvements to the College of Business which should be neat to see come 2015 – 16.

I have had a longstanding complaint about the Black Studies Department at Portland State University. It is totally unprofessional!
First, I could never get ahold of Kofi Agorsah-​Professor & Chair or his assistant-​Angela (I tried multiple times through telephone and email). I feel college tuition is too expensive to not get assistance on academic and advising needs. Later, I earned a minor in Black Studies but instead of advising from the department, I used DARS and hoped it was correct-​luckily it was. Once you do take the classes, the teachers and classes are amazing. Roberta Hunte, for example, challenges her students with a lot of reading, community events, and projects.
Secondly, there are no black studies classes offered online (come on, how complicated can the subject be to not be offered online) the number of minors issued might increase if online options were available. Lastly, while the Middle Eastern Studies Department is highly visible in the community and seems very professional and active, the Black Studies Department appears to do nothing. I don’t know why they don’t advertise the events that they do have better. For example, it’s hard to find any information on the Black Bag series-it’s not even up to date on their website. They also did a Teach Africa conference in conjunction with the World Affairs of Oregon, which was great. I would just like to see more events or community presence.
Also, the website for this program seems unmaintained and outdated. If the department doesn’t project a professional image then how can any black studies major, minor, or certificate be taken seriously within the community and among professionals. For comparison:
(out of date events and newsletters, no presence in the community or on social media like the Middle Eastern studies program which has tons of resources and events:
). I did see that the black studies department now has a Facebook page that seems interesting and well maintained.
It really is a shame because the program could be so much better than what it is.
*PSU if you are interested in hiring someone who can return inquiries and help to build a better Black Studies department I am available for hire.

I got my BS in Business Administration: IT Management when they still had the option.
The school is awesome, I honestly miss PSU. As everyone else mentioned, it is a commuter school. However, you couldn’t ask for a better campus environment. Large campus, food carts down the street, Rogue Hall, street car runs through campus, park blocks, farmers market Saturdays, pizzacato, hot lips, Cheerful Tortoise, laughing planet, schimizza… and on and on.
It’s just a great vibe. All the students mind their own, like all of Portland does. Professors are easily approachable and down to earth. Everything ran smoothly, I didn’t have any issues with billing or any other student account issues.
Anyhow, I would recommend PSU.

Oh hey! I go here, and I checked in once. Let’s review.
The campus itself is conveniently located in our beautiful downtown just off of the South Park Blocks. So that’s nice. Great rec center, decent library, student union, and plenty of places to eat around campus. Class sizes at least in my program were no more than 30 students. Very close to TriMet and MAX.
I did my undergrad elsewhere, and completed the GTEP program through the School of Education. In 13 crazy intense months you too can have a teaching license and Masters in Education. The program had some definite kinks, and you get to say goodbye to your life for a year. But I lucked out and got into the district I ultimately wanted to teach in for my student teaching. I always felt like if I really needed help I could have gotten it from my cohort leaders. And most importantly I made some badass life-​long teacher friends in the process.
Overall, it was a positive experience. I’m working on some additional classes and was disappointed that my program got cut for summer term. Ah well, that makes total sense given how cheap tuition remains… (**that last bit was sarcasm**)

Very pretty campus. I like to get my learn on, and I could here. I do not live in Portland, but I would.