The University of Minnesota Twin Cities

Date: Feb 04 2008
Major: Kinesiology (This Major's Salary over time)
The U of M is what you make of it. It is so (extremely) huge that it is easy to feel like you don't have a place here or any support. This is especially true during your freshman and sophomore year when you are taking all of the bullshit pre-req courses (Intro to Psych had something like 700 people in lecture). As if that isn't enough, the campus is massive. There are three separate campuses that your classes could be held. As a freshman I had classes on all 3 campuses, as did many of my friends. All three campuses are each bigger than most colleges I'd say. Once you are taking classes within your major you will stay mostly on one campus, though.

Don't expect any help from the advisers. They are worthless, but it seems that is the case everywhere. If you know exactly what you want to do, you will be OK. If you are undecided, as are 95% of first year college students, then don't count on graduating in 4 years unless you are lucky and take lots of summer courses.

My last complaint: This is a RESEARCH UNIVERSITY. The University is obsessed with "becoming one of top 3 research universities in the country". This is great and all, but it does a disservice to undergraduates (especially freshman and sophs). Professors are required to teach classes that are elementary to them in order to keep their research funds. Some of them enjoy teaching these courses and do a good job, but most of them consider it an annoyance and, as a student, you can definitely tell. This obviously doesn't help your education. These professors have very large egos. You'll definitely get tired of hearing them spout off their various accolades, publishings as "first author" (who cares!@), and "funny" stories about their esteemed colleagues.

That being said, I actually love(d) it here. Once I got used to all the negatives of the U listed above, I began enjoying myself. Since you will be sandwiched between to large cities (Minneapolis and St Paul), you can't be bored. Big and small musical acts frequent the area, plenty of bars, lots of parks/lakes/outdoor stuff to do, etc. I would recommend coming here if you are comfortable going at it (mostly) alone.