University of Houston-Downtown (UHD)

I personally do NOT recommend the UHD court reporting program. I enrolled in the program in 2024 and ended up not finishing. To this day, I am extremely disappointed with the money (~$4,000) that was wasted for this program. I was under the impression that the instructor would be more involved, and it was not explained/emphasized that the program is basically self-paced. The assignments were to watch two videos and submit 2,000 word strokes daily with a quiz typically once a week. Students were to meet on Zoom twice a week to talk with the instructor and interact with other students but that ended up not being helpful. After a couple of months or so, there were hardly any students joining the Zoom so it became pointless. If I had known the things I know now, I would have put my money somewhere else. I asked questions beforehand, but I feel like I was told one thing so that I would spend my money and enroll in the program. I know for a fact that I am not the only person that felt some type of way with this program because there were a few people enrolled at the same time as me and they didn't finish the program either. Lastly, I didn't hear from my instructor(s) as often as I would have liked, but I guess that's just how the program operates. When the usual instructor went on leave, we were told someone else would be filling in, but I don't even think I received any communication from that instructor if it wasn't about the weekly Zoom links.

Food choices are absolutely horrendous, everything is loaded with sugars, mainly junk food, removed salad bar because it was "too expensive" and now have a disgusting candy bar instead, literally a bar filled with chocolates and candy. Limited food choices, all the food in the cold area is filled with sugars and looks horrendous and the worst part is that they close at 3pm. I guess people do not get hungry after 3pm? I have seen people walk to the area and have the rude ladies close the cafe store in their faces. Removed chick fil a because they are cheap and refused to pay for the extension of the restaurant since Chick fil a wanted to give the students fresh food instead of pre-packaged food. Absolutely disgusting, considering all the money they charge and make from the students.

Do not go to this school if you want to be successful and have other things going on within your life . You need professors and faculty members who will look out for you when things become challenging. If you do need to go to this school be sure to not take Darius Benton’s class . He will be sure to make you feel insignificant as a student . Predatory financial aid and will not help you at all .

My four years here were pretty good. Classes are small and (most) instructors do care. I do feel that students have to pick up more and more slack every year as they enter the workforce; just a degree isn't going to cut it (if you want a great job). The biggest issue I had while attending UHD is that you must double check everything administrative while attending. Financial aid? They will mess something up unless you check on them and follow up often. Registration? Random class drops. Cashier? Random holds on your account. Student employees are particularly clueless when it comes to asking them important questions. Why are student employees in financial aid providing factually incorrect answers? A wrong answer can cost someone thousands, or tens of thousands. Despite that I enjoyed my years here and would recommend UHD to anyone looking for a degree who will put in extra work to make it as valuable as possible.

Graduated in 2019 with a Criminal Justice degree. Visited recently to see that the campus has expanded greatly.

Someone needs to talk to the lady in the parking permit office her name is Vanessa (an older lady) my research class and I went over to obtain some passes that we needed in order to get into the research lab (we needed a certain card that only this office has in order to activate it) and she was so absolutely rude from the moment she started talking to us, we contacted our instructor by phone and she (Vanessa) yelled at me and demanded to talk to the professor after I asked her if she wanted to talk to her so she could explain what we needed through the phone and yelled at me saying she didn't want to. Once she started talking to the professor she answered nicely and smiling as if she wasn't just yelling at us seconds earlier, and this is not the first time she has done that, according to my classmates she talks to students very rudely everytime they go there, but acts nicely to the actual staff. Just because we are students doesn't mean we don't deserve the same respect, our tuition is paying for you salary.

Good open University. Growing approachable staff. Historic Building.

I went there to install graphics on 2 glass doors for the Enrollment Management Dept