Honestly, the only thing I don't regret about going to Drew were my awesome professors, my job at the library, and the fact that I met the love of my life (who, coincidentally, cannot find a decent job with his Drew degree and not for lack of trying) there. Otherwise, if I could do it all again, I would have taken advantage of the NJ Stars program that I was eligible for back in high school and graduated with minimal/no student debt instead of the $18k in debt that I had when I finished Drew.Things I disliked...
- the unresponsive and uncaring administration (seriously, the fact that students were surveyed about building a new dorm and were overwhelmingly against the idea, but a new dorm was built anyway even though the money could have been spent on so many different things)...
- the fact that the buildings are crumbling, disgusting, and outdated (though they are finally tearing down the eyesore that was the University Center and building a new one, thank God, and the gym was, of course, updated in spring of 2010, the semester after I thankfully left)...
- the horrendous lack of career support for current students and alums (no night hours past 5 pm for alums who may need assistance, and the astoundingly profound "I don't like Monster.com because it's too broad" advice I got from the career center's director back in fall 2009 as I was in the midst of my job search for post-Drew life)...
- the idiotic staff (my work study was not approved until halfway through September of my junior year and no one told me until the human resources person at the library emailed me to tell me I wasn't cleared and therefore would not be getting my first paycheck of the year, nevermind that I was paying my own way and had a massive credit card bill for my fall semester books... only to call up finaid to be told that I didn't submit the docs they had requested back in July, when I definitely did, to which I received a phone call later letting me know that my stuff was received but no one marked it into the system as being received)
- housing selection (seriously, standing around for 2-3 hours in the UC trying to select the next year's room? unbelievable - though I understand they're trying to move it completely online next year)
- the fact that since I am now an alum, the only time Drew contacts me is to try to get me to dig into my wallet & donate... thanks but NO thanks
- Drew sells itself as a school with lots of internship opportunities and a good theatre department... good luck getting support in finding an internship, and forget about ever working on one of the shows unless you're a theatre major
- NOTHING to do on the weekends
- horrible P-Safety, some drunk guy walked into my & my roommate's room on Halloween (she neglected to lock the door after getting up to go to the bathroom) and pissed on my bed, and nothing ever happened to him... but they have no problems forcing their way into students' rooms to try to find something incriminating
- school "newspaper" is a sad excuse for a paper. notice I used quotation marks. One time I posted something on an online Drew forum, then found it quoted in an article written in the Acorn... no one bothered to inform me or ask if it was okay for my words to be quoted as if they had been spoken in the paperThere are more things, and I could probably bitch about Drew all night. The only thing it was good for is the fact that it helped me get my current job... NOT because my degree was from Drew, but because one of the prerequisites for getting hired was just to have a Bachelor's degree! So thanks for nothing, Drew, and I'm intensely glad that I am out of there. If I'm feeling generous in the future, I *might* consider donating toward some kind of English scholarship... but don't hold your breath while Robert Weisbuch is president. Seriously Pres Bob .... stop mentioning your kids who go to different colleges when you speak at convocations and commencements! It's incredibly classless, and besides that, no one cares.
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