I had to take 2 classes at PLU during summer a few years back to make up credits for classes I um...didn't do too well in, at my regular school (University of British Columbia). I was visiting my parents in the Tacoma area and they told me I had to take summer classes somewhere for sucking my 2nd semester of school. But the low rating given has nothing to do with the fact that my summer vacation was forced to be spent here.
Biggest con is the price. On the website right now, it says summer session costs $605 per credit. If I recall correctly, both the classes I took were 4 credits, so I paid around $2420 for each class (or close to around that, I don't think the fluctuation a few years ago was out of that price range). I think that's crazy! I only pay $450 per class at UBC, and it's a school consistently ranked Top 40 in the world university rankings. If I was going to school full time, for $2420 per class, it'd be the same price of an Ivy League school without any of the prestige or name recognition.
The campus is alright. It's in Spanaway, so there's typical suburban activities to do around like your typical US chain restaurants, and it's easy to get around if you have a car. There's a really nice rec center within 5 minutes of the school, and a couple dive bars. I wouldn't say it's a great suburb though, some people label Spanaway negatively, but I think it's alright. The look and size of the campus isn't amazing though. It's clean, very private, and has lots of stuff for sports (tennis, indoor pool, basketball). Their Student Center is nice, library is average. For the price, you could be attending a way cooler school with state of the art buildings and facilities.
One of my classmates told me during the fall PLU gets way busier, and they have sports stuff going on. But it's a dry campus, and the people didn't strike me as the type that would be into throwing lots of campus parties. For half the price you could be going to a high ranked school, with more parties - so why wouldn't you?
The two classes I took:
Communication, Media & The World: This is the reason why I give PLU 2 stars and not 1. The class was tiny, it started with 7 people and ended with 5. I took this because UBC doesn't have Communication classes, so I found it interesting. The Professor gave a strong effort, I think he said he use to work for CNN. The class was easy, I got an A, which is a 90%something at this school. For the same effort, I would have gotten a 70-75% at UBC (a B- to a B). One of the nicest Professors I've met though, one of the positive things I'll remember about PLU.
Biology, Introduction to Ecology: Within one of the couple classes, the Professor made a comment about how, "Certain animals can walk on water by manipulating molecules. So this proves that Jesus can walk on water." Thing made another comment in another class about how something completely unrelated to Creationism proved Creationism. I'm not joking, he said this stuff - in a biology class. I have nothing against Christianity at all. But he needs to keep his religious theories out of the biology classroom. We mostly did a lot of busy work like walked around in a grass field for hours, or count seeds (I wish I were joking but I'm not). The class was small, it was like taking a remedial high school science class.
I wouldn't choose to go to PLU full time. There are much better options in every way around not only Washington, but the entire Westcoast. read more