Northern Illinois University

I am one semester through the Graduate Music program at NIU and I am transferring out this following year. The reasons for this are:

(a)the professional administration of the program(s)is horrible. -It's like just flying by the seat of your pants all the time. If your going to live off campus and work, don't bother coming here because you'll never know what is going on until the last minute. If you live on campus and don't work, you might have enough of a heads up to be prepared...

(b)No money. I don't know one music Grad student at NIU getting anything but assistantships & loans with the exception of, and this brings me to my final point, Chinese women.

(c)They are flat racist. Plenty of scholarship and tuition waivers if you fall under affirmative action, especially Chinese women whom they actually encourage specifically for application, and nothing for anyone else. My classes are literally 1/2 Chinese women. Not my idea of fair or diversity.I have complained officially at NIU it is so bad. I'm out. Hope this helps somebody.

I was a graduate student at NIU, in the Developmental Psychology program. If you make the horrific decision to go here, definitely do NOT work with Nina Mounts. She has only graduated ONE student with their PhD. She was co-chair on the committee for another student. Other than that, all of her students switch to different areas or quit the program. She is lazy, self-absorbed, and you will learn nothing from her except how NOT to do research. She doesn't care about her students and unfortunately, because she has tenure, she doesn't have to even pretend like she does. Going here was the WORST decision of my life.

Amidst the arrogant and often bumbling administration there are but few devoted and qualified faculty members. Unfortunatly the faculty members that are on the ball are over worked because the administators do not hire full time tenure track positions. The graduate students have few choices for studio classes because the abundance of professors are adjunct and not allowed to teach at the graduate level. The most dissapointing part about my experience is the tension that is allowed and cultivated by the schools director, no one feels comfortable around this person, and rumors are always in the air. The director usually resorts to bully tactics and does not seem to have any goals in mind for the graduate studio department. There is a division between most departments and the focus of the school has been to place importance on the Art Education Dept. A common name for grad school here is 'highschool' refering to the demeaning attitude of the administrators, and the forcefull tactics of the Director