Western Michigan University

Date: Jul 07 2000
Major: English (This Major's Salary over time)
Example: WMU spent $500k on a schoolwide bus system. Who paid? Myself. Along with all the other unfortunate commuter students with the (W) sticker who saw their fees increase 50% in two months. Another example: Parking Services raised fines by close to 100% in most places to generate $2m in revenue over the first year. No additional parking was created, in fact, parking was lost due to the construction of a new building and reallocation of commuter parking to faculty parking. In order to create more spaces, the university purchased a student bar (a town monument) as well as "Discount Den", the only cheap, privately owned convenience/party store in the area for close to a million dollars. They were demolished and turned into stall parking spaces. Trust me, this reflects the attitude of the entire university. Personally, I slipped and nearly fell on my ass on a patch of wet ground on the top level of the parking structure (cement that was painted with a high-gloss oil paint - in MICHIGAN…in the WINTER, PEOPLE…). When I finally walked over to the administration building to complain about it, neither the President, nor his Second in Command, nor his Third in Command had shown up to work that day. The only three people who could close the University for a day were not even on-campus! Once, my old knee injury acted up to the point where I visited the triage nurse at the multimilliondollar Syndecuse Health Center. The doctor offered me a Tylenol. The fact that I had survived this injury since I was EIGHT did not change the fact that she was not going to prescribe a narcotic to a student anytime, ever. I had to go to the Dean of Student Affairs (who was not in that day, I saw his assistant) and leverage him (he also had an old Football injury) into getting me an audience with the Dean of the health center. She prescribed a pain killer and an anti-inflammatory. I've been on this too long already. The Education Department is full of HausFraus that teach sixth grade and think that qualifies them to teach me. What they don't understand is the it takes a special person to be a college professor. Their entire staff is of very low quality, and in the course of my entire Education program, I was taught by one Doctor. The rest were current teachers trying to make a fast extra buck. It was seriously deficient. They were idiots. The other departments (English and Political Science) were fantastic. They really took care of me, especially Dr. Houghton (Chair) of the Political Science area. Both these areas had staff and faculty that made it a pleasure to get up in the morning and drive in for a lecture. It was a really good experience in both of these places. In short, if you go, don't drive a car (even though, in Kalamazoo, you need one to go anywhere worth going). If you stay, don't go to the health center. And if you want to learn, try not to do it in the Education Department.