San Francisco State University

Honestly f-​u-​c-​k state this has got to be the worst semester I’ve had here. I’m almost a senior and not once in my entire time here did I ever get the classes I wanted/​needed and at the time I wanted them. They seriously only have two labs open and only allow 18 students per class. But they have money for stupidity, why is there freaking cruises to Australia but not enough classes open! I came for an education not a vacation.

Thank you SFSU. Had my move in date today. Drove up to SF, only to get an email saying that I’m missing 4 units. To a class that I was told would let me transfer. Now I gotta try and get my $ 8k back. I’m im a hotel room in SF with all my stuff, seriously don’t know what to do at the moment

I had to think of a notable place to write my 100^th review and, well, I couldn’t think of a better institution than SF State. My previous review was featured as ROTD, so I feel some deep obligation to make this one even more informative/​helpful now that I have actually graduated. Well, I graduated nearly two years ago at this point, and my opinions on the school haven’t changed. I still feel it’s a wonderful institution with passionate professors, energetic students, and an admirable underlying mission to help the community. My experience here started as a rosy-​cheeked 18 year old in 2010 — fresh from a sheltered high school with little diversity and an ultra-​conservative community. My goal here was to grow as a person, find my passion, and learn/​experience real world issues. I successfully accomplished two of three, with finding my passion being the ongoing pursuit. I was quickly met by the supportive SF State residential community (I highly recommend you live on campus your first year) and a first semester of academically challenging, yet gratifying, school work. During my time at SFSU, I was able to take incredibly interesting courses such as: Hip Hop Workshop, Life on Television, Films of the 50s, Sustainable Business, Astronomy, Philosophy… the list goes on (literally, I could go for hours!). I also had amazing professors, so I’ll take this opportunity to name a few and their corresponding department: Thomas (BUS), Wolf (BECA), Chaudhuri (ECON), Feldman (BUS), Su (BUS), Freeman (ENG). Even if you never take one of these professors, you will surely create a list of your own! These amazing individuals have dedicated their lives to education and growing the next generation of future leaders — utilize them! (Quick side note: I can never thank Daniel Freeman enough for challenging my way of thinking and encouraging me to reflect on my own personal journey. His English 114 class may have been the single most influential course I took in college, and I will never forget his lessons and style. A truly amazing guy!)
In addition to the wonderful instruction, you have a variety of resources, clubs, and academic organizations at your disposal. Joining a campus club is, in my opinion, one of the most important things you can do to ensure a successful journey at SF State. You will be surrounded with like-​minded, motivated individuals who share a common interest. This also (nearly) guarantees you friends, a support system, and future study groups. They have organizations for nearly every interest or topic: religion, academic, social, athletic, etc.
The last point on my mind is the beautiful city of San Francisco. You will have four short years to enjoy everything this city has to offer and, in hindsight, that feels like not enough time. Enjoy every part of San Francisco, from the mission to the sunset, and maybe even wander into the Tenderloin once or twice to try some food. You will find this city is bursting with personality, and you will meet wonderful people, taste amazing food, and learn a thing or two about yourself if you give it a chance. If this is your first time away from home, the beginning will be hard. The end of the journey, however, it worth the occasional tear because it is a pretty sweet thing to say you spent four years of your life at SF State. It turned out to be the single most fulfilling, fun thing I have done in my short life.
Thanks for the memories, SF State!

Completed EKG certification program online through health Ed today (
)
Charged 1300 dollars for program. I passed with excellent score and even took and passed board exam
What they don’t tell you is there are zero jobs available. Complete waste of money. They are a business interested in money not your education or welfare

The worst Admission Office! Not helpful at all. Each one you meet they get rid of you and send you to another person to help, but the truth is you never get help! They sit down and do nothing but collect lots of money from you.
The annoying part is that they don’t have one on one meetings with supervisors or otherss, everything has to be on the phone on email! This is BS, the small city college can handle things better than this!

DO NOT GO HERE FOR FINGERPRINT CARDS!
I was referred to SFSU police to get fingerprint cards, as I needed a federal background check done. After getting a set of fingerprints I sent them to the FBI. They were rejected for poor quality. I made the mistake of going back, hoping the first set was an anomaly. Nope! I went for a second set, sent the second set to the FBI, and they were rejected again! So I contacted them requesting a refund and, guess what? They said they don’t issue refunds. Thanks Joy Manaois! I had to find another firm to get a third set done due to the shoddy work of the SFSU police. I am out $ 60 because of their incompetence.

SF State is the DMV of universities.
The administration is incompetent and there is ZERO accountability for the job they do.
There is no sense of community.

Great nursing school. Currently here working on my masters and I’m learning a lot. Beautiful campus. A lot to do around here. This is why it gets three stars. The admissions office as a whole sucks. Housing has students working there that don’t know the answers to any of your questions. On top of that financial aid is slow on refunding you. They come up with a thousand bullshit excuses before you get any of your money from them and on top of that they transfer you to other departments when they don’t know the answer to your question. Don’t live on campus or you will get ripped off. They don’t have that many options and you’re required to get a meal plan where the food sucks.

Highly unethical admissions practices! Be warned!
I knew that SFSU was known as a mediocre school, and I have multiple friends that have transferred out in disgust, but I ignored these warning signs. I really wanted to go to school in SF, and the price was right. I was not prepared for the bureaucratic nightmare that followed.
I am a straight-​A transfer student, with 3 years of classes at a national top-​ten liberal arts college and a few years of community college transfer prereqs.
SFSU accepted me last spring, and I registered, paid fees, went to orientation, and moved my family across the state in preparation for the Aug 24^th beginning of classes. One week ago, I tried unsuccessfully to register for an additional class. (My student center page, which has all the academic/​financial/​etc info never registered a hold or gave any indication of problems throughout the entire process.) when I called to inquire (be prepared to get a phone runaround), I was told that an admissions review officer had decided THE DAY BEFORE, TWO WEEKS BEFORE THE BEGINNING OF THE TERM, that an English class that I’d taken at the private school, and that had fulfilled a similar requirement there, did not qualify for SFSU’s GE requirement, and that therefore, my admission had been revoked. This is like saying that a Stanford class, because it doesn’t have the same title and classification system, is unworthy while the community college officially transferable course, of which I took the other GE req and in which my classmates were barely literate and still passed, is fine. Ridiculous. Keep in mind that SFSU had my transcripts since last November. The admissions officer who made the decision told me that this is their regular policy, that she could do nothing, and that my only recourse was to submit a petition to the Admissions director, which I did. I never received either acknowledgment of my petition or a response, and my
Student Center page continued to show everything fine until yesterday, when it showed that all my classes had been canceled. I received neither notification (my student email account continues to receive new student spam and they have my physical contact details) nor explanation. Had I not tried to register for the extra class, I would have had no idea that anything was wrong until yesterday, a week before the beginning of the fall term. I am stunned by the utter lack of ethics that this demonstrates. I had, as I mentioned, heard that students are treated as disposable commodities there, but I never dreamed that it would be so severe. Also, while I was able to cancel my loans, my Pell and Cal grants are still showing up as valid (of course no one in the financial aid office answers either the phone or email), and I am suspicious that they do their transcript review so close to disbursement date so that these funds are funneled to the school.
I am honestly considering suing them for moving expenses (I’m in my 30s with a family, it’s not a small deal) and pain and suffering for completely and utterly wasting my time, but I’m sure, since these are apparently their normal practices, that they’ve protected themselves somewhere in the fine print.
Ugh. Save your money, save your time, and heed the many warnings that you will inevitably receive. The cheap tuition isn’t worth it.

Used to have my freshman and half sophomore year wasted in this evil school. The tuition fee keeps going up, luckily I get out quick enough and transfer to a community college in LA and ends up getting into a UC school which is not that bad. Even though this school still has some good professors and some nice ppl, it is just a state university which is not that kinda good place for u to study. Miss this place for used to go to school here, but still I would never recommend this school as you try to get a bachelor degree and hopefully use it for getting a job. Good luck gators.

Graduated from here 4 years ago. Lots of fun times. Now they have a new library. That’s sweet. The food area is okay. The classes are cool. Just remember to take classes that you are interested in. Get in and get n out. Don’t BS because this is your education. Take it seriously and don’t fool around doing dumb stuff like not showing up to class and coming up with excuses as to why you arent prepared. Make the choice to succeed and remove the idea of failing. Socialize and make some connections. Go gators! !!! Sf state all day.

Alumni. I enjoyed my two years at this school. I met wonderful people as well as professors. Campus is nice as well. No complaints for me.

I spent a year here at SFSU. It was certainly not my first choice school, but I decided to make the best of it. I tried to embrace the university, but I just couldn’t get myself to. I felt miserable commuting to school everyday. The campus itself is very small. SFSU doesn’t have the traditional «college» feel to the campus and that was something I was looking for. It’s a commuter college. Everyone commutes to campus, goes to class, and then goes home. There isn’t really a «college community» or school spirit. To me, SFSU felt just like high school. I felt like everyone in my classes only attended class because the were forced to (even though you pay money for them); there was little motivation amongst the students.
I felt the level of academic challenge wasn’t there as well. One of the moments that stood out for me was when I wanted to sign up for calculus as part of my fulfillment of the math GE and one of the administrators laughed and told me to not sign up for it because it’s too hard for a GE. Isn’t that why we’re in college? To learn and challenge ourselves? Why only do the bare minimum? That’s such a high school mentality. Besides I had already taken another part calculus and it wasn’t that bad.
As for the administration and services, it’s all so disorganized. I went in to ask about something and they sent me running around campus going to different departments just to get an answer. It’s so disorganized. You also don’t get assigned an advisor; if there was assignments, they certainly didn’t notify me about it. Signing up for classes is also a nightmare, it’s insane.
I’m glad I was lucky enough to transfer out of SFSU after a year there. It was a terrible experience and definitely not a perfect fit for me. For those reading this and are in the mist of picking out colleges, please take my review lightly. This is just from my personal experience. I encourage you to tour the campus and read other opinions before making your decisions.

A great university in a great city. It is perfectly located in the Lake Merced district of SF. Close enough to hop on Muni to get wherever you want to go, but still far enough from downtown to have a real campus feel.
Great faculty and staff. Fun atmosphere.

Friday, May 22, 2015
Today, after five years, I am officially an alumnus of San Francisco State University.
Where to begin?
I remember, after my first year, that I had made up my mind at the time that I was finished with State and would transfer out as soon as I possibly could. Why? I hated the weather, I felt that the university had nothing positive to offer and, overall, I just didn’t like the place.
Reflecting back on all that’s happened, I’m happy as hell that I made the decision to attend SFSU during my senior year of high school.
Facts:
* Yes, it’s a commuter school. HOWEVER, don’t let that deter you from getting your education here. There are still many students who come from far away (i.e. LA and SD) and living in on-​campus housing or nearby, such as in Parkmerced, are great ways to meet and interact with fellow Gators. There are also many clubs and organizations (including fraternities and sororities, both professional and social) for you to join.
* There are many great eateries on campus, such as Ike’s, Café Rosso, Café 101 and more.
* There are academic advisors in the adminstration building who are always there to help you if you have any questions about selecting classes, grades, etc.
* SFSU, despite being considered by some as a lower tier school, has many outstanding departments, most notably its BECA department (many news anchors and reporters at local stations have graduated from SFSU’s BECA department), its college of business, its nursing program and its kinesiology program, among many others.
* You’re in San Francisco! This is the place to be! You can take Muni and Bart into the city and explore whenever you want. Some of my favorite memories include going to AT&T Park for Giants games (and for today’s commencement ceremony) and places like Baker Beach with friends.
I understand that many students have issues with things like budget cuts, lack of classes, bad professors, etc. But, in all honesty, I learned that a significant factor in determining your college experience what you do to make the most of it. I had to crash classes, I had some professors who were horrible and I had to take required classes that I absolutely hated. But I made it through in one piece. You can too.
Some of my favorite professors whom I had (both for and not for my major) include Carrington, Sigmon, Murdock, Beckman, Sayeed and Verma, just to name a few.
So, yes, I’ll miss SF State. It was an honor to have completed by bachelor of science’s degree in business administration with a concentration in information systems here and I wouldn’t hesitate to come back here if I decide to pursue another degree. (I originally came here for BECA and I still love it, so who knows? Maybe I’ll come back again for that.) It was also an honor to have had the opportunity to have participated in the commencement ceremony which took place this year at AT&T Park with Gavin Newsom as the commencement speaker and Annette Bening, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Peter Gabel as honorary degree recipients.
I’m proud to call SFSU my alma mater. Hopefully, you are/​will be too.
I’m happy to help anyone who has any questions. Message me and I’ll help in any way I can.
Also, take a look at my «SFSU» list here on Unilocal to read reviews on various place at or near SFSU.
Peace out, SFSU. It’s been real and I’ll miss you.
5 stars all the way

The junior college that I went to is better than this school. First, the staff weren’t very nice and helpful, most of them are rude and disorganized. Second of all, the administration sucks. I went for a drop in advising and it took me an hour to meet a counselor because he’s the only advisor.
If you don’t want to be stressed out and disappointed, I suggest you to stay away from this school.

Hands down to the BEST state college in San Francisco! && NO, I’m not just saying that because I went here and graduated with Cum Luade! I’m saying it because its true!
In 2008, I was accepted to go to Sonoma State, San Diego, Sacramento and San Francisco State… Once I received my letter there was no turning back!
I packed my bags so quick and off I was! I lived on campus for two years at The Mary Park Dorms. There are actually two dorm locations. The Mary Park and Mary Ward. All rooms are double occupancy with showers and bathrooms on each wing of every floor. Rooms are funished with beds, desks, bookshelves, dressers, and closets — one for each student. Wired connections are provided to all guests. Higher speed connections are available at additional cost. Conference Services provides a single telephone line in each unit that is shared by all guests in the room. After two years I moved to Park Merced which is nice because its walking distance from the school (Very convenient)
Parking can be challenging so if you can try to commute or take public transportation. Many students commute to this school so parking is NOT easy on ANY given day!
The Professors at this school are amazing and truly have a heart to help you succeed in your career. They are very educated, helpful and understanding. I remember my many mornings and evenings I would stay in the office with the teachers and get all the advise and help I can get.
The Muni is right in front of the school which is VERY convenient as well especially because driving in San Francisco can be a disaster at times.
There is the mall that is right next to the school and walking distance as well!
I was able to apply and receive full 4 year scholarships to be able to pay my tuition through school. I TRULY love San Francisco State and definitely recommend it for anyone that is truly ready to continue their education and get a degree!
Cheers to class of 2012!

Great large clean campus! I’m thinking about considering going here for a semester or four ha ha

Wonderful Asian american studies department. Graduated in 2005. Came back for a child development day conference… so sad the bathroom in humanities is a mess what happened!

The administration is a complete mess and does not make attempts to improve the downward flow of information and accountability within ANY department.
Student complaints and concerns fall on deaf ears.
Most professors are rude, disorganized, hypocritical and frankly don’t care. There are no consequences for them whatsoever.
Please don’t apply here. You will be stressed, depressed and receive a sub-​par education.