The Saint Mary's University of Minnesota

SMU is a interesting school because it has a phenomenal business program that will allow you to gain knowledge and prepare you for the business world and the classes are engaging and make you work but after the school day is done St. Mary's shows its tru colors. Food Sucks but that is not the point, Chartwells is the provider but the varitey of the food sucks and the food plans are poorly laid out, i mean after you are a freshmen the options stink especially for the athletes. The next thing is res life, I have had m issues with them but they truly dont get it, for instance they go ballistic if you anything alcohol related in your rooms which is dumb but they take things from your rooms over breaks plus they have no clue how to plan activities for college kids. Mary's also has poor communication between departments and other institutions on the campus which make the littlest things, like work grant jobs, which causes things to done get done!

4th Year Male -- Class 2012

Faculty Accessibility: A+, Social Life: F

The first thing that i need to say is that during my 4 years at smu i did meet some of my best friends i have ever had and i did encounter some professors that i found inspirational. There are many things that make smu an attractive school like the location and a small school atmosphere if you are into that kind of thing, but these things are not why i write this review. before heading off to smu i would have a high school student think about this, when you get asked where you go/went to school for the rest of your life do you really want to go through and explain you went to saint marys, and oh by the way not the first 1 or 2 or 3 saint marys that pop into your listener's head? followed by an explanation that it is in an old hippie town a half an hour out of lacrosse. if that were smu's only problems it would still be in good shape, but the list goes on. there are too many things that jump into my head from my four years there so i wont go in any particular order. lets start with the fact that smu is a private school. that fact by itself does not make it bad but think about it this way. on private property smu makes the laws and if you don't like it they will get their $80,000 from some other shmuck. there are no written rules that RAs are obliged to follow (if you dont believe me look it up their handbook (http://www.smumn.edu/Resources/pdf/25834.pdf). this isn't to say the RAs and hall directors aren't trained or anything like that, but what it does mean is that they are able to put your name and recommended punishment on a piece of paper and it does not matter if they are off duty, drunk, high, off campus at the time of the incident, or anything else you can think of. while certainly not encouraged to fabricate or lie about goings on they are able to with zero evidence against you. go down to res. life and ask about it.

i'm sure many of you readers can tell i am a bit bitter about that one, but i can say my record at saint mary's came out clean. apart from Tim Gossen's minimum wage goons many of you may hear bad things about the cafeteria. i would say that is mostly snooty rich kids, its ok. and if snooty rich kids aren't your thing you should also hit the brakes when looking to jump into smu, but on the flip side of that coin you will meet some hippies, rednecks, nerds and other folks who know how to have a good time with good people. i do not have stats to back this statement up, but to me i saw what seemed to be a lot of legacy kids forced into smu by their parents who wind up hating it and getting the hell out of dodge after one semester. classes certainly shrink at smu though, that's for sure, there is a reason they take class pictures during week one freshman year.

i want to conclude my review of smu with some of the lessons i learned there and the observations i made there. before i unsubscribed to their emailing list and gave them inaccurate contact information for when they come looking for donations. a small, no name school needs a few things. one is prestige and valuable alums to build their brand. if you are not going to help the school claw its way up the higher education respect ladder they do not care about you. another thing they need is money, they will get that from you no matter what, but that's every school. another thing to consider is that colleges need teachers with advanced degrees and good luck finding one who got their doctorate from smu. what does that mean? when/if the big sexy school they dream of teaching at calls them up all but a few will run down the halls with both middle fingers in the air because they got out of the minors and into the big time.

you young bucks going from high school to college will no doubt encounter a professor at whatever school you choose who tell you to not be a brick in the wall or at least make some other anti-authoritative/anti-establishment remarks that they will explain with lyrics to some other song. instead of spending your money at Saint Mary's University of Minnesota, (extend the pinky, sip tea, puff on cigar) take the advice from someone who already learned it there and apply it in a way i did not.stay the hell away from SMU

Alumnus Male -- Class 2000

4th Year Male -- Class 2011