The College of Mount St Joseph

After more than 5 years of doing everything my advisers told me to do, I still do not have my 4 year bachelor's degree in education, despite getting good grades. They kept telling me I took the wrong classes after I took the classes they told me to take, even when I questioned them on a couple of them. They ran me out of money. I now have teach grants that have turned into loans I have to pay back, because I lack credits the Ohio Department of Education requires for teachers and can't get a teaching certificate. Terrible program. If you want to be a teacher, run far, far away from MSJ.

5th Year Female -- Class 2012

Perceived Campus Safety: A+, Education Quality: F

This school fosters no form of personal growth or development. Choosing to attend this college means you choose to halt all maturation and remain at the level you are now. 66% of the school commutes, and most of the school comes from nearby areas. This means the population of students are people who are afraid to leave home and reach out of their comfort zone. The teachers do not teach, rather give you A's and B's for doing nothing. Take that as you will, but in the grand scheme of things I find this to be a negative. Also is the fact that campus is only a five minute walk from one side to the other, and extracurricular life, besides the Division 3 sports, if you choose to play, and non-existent. Overall, this school will not help you grow in intelligence or as a person. people from this school generally are not successful later in life compared to many other college if you take time to look up statistics. All this as well as the fact that tuition is through the roof because it is a private school run by Sisters who are in the process of becoming extinct. Do not make the mistake I did. Freshman year is the most exciting time in your college career. Do NOT ruin it by attending this college. Please go to a reputable college and make the most out of this opportunity in your life.

2nd Year Male -- Class 2012

First off, when you're taken on a tour of the college, they paint it to be awesome and well worth the tuition and do so in a very believable manner. Well, when "welcome Weekend" comes, you might realize that you made a bad choice. I know I did. Right off the bat, they treat you like you're still in high school. I can understand "ice breaker" activities to get everyone acquainted, but what they had us do was extremely stupid and didn't help "break the ice" at all. Everybody still stayed in their cliques and groups. No social boundaries were broken. No ice was broken. The various 2-hour seminars were complete drags and weren't very informative. Basically, "Welcome Weekend" was a complete failure.

The science department is amazing. The lectures and labs are top notch. The instructors care deeply about the material they teach and it shows, which personally, made me want to learn more. A class that really irks me is the class known as "IDS 100 Foundations Seminar." This class is required by all freshman and new students. It's basically a class where you discuss topics such as diversity, "being different", social justice, and much more. The instructor was second-rate. I applaud their efforts to stir up conversation and discussion, but their lack of knowledge and know-how on the topic at hand didn't help. On top of that, I was surrounded by the most close-minded and arrogant people I had ever met in my life. They lacked basic knowledge on social studies and had the mindset of society 50 years ago. There was also copious amounts of busy work in this class.

Most of the people who go to MSJ are complete idiots. 40% of the student body are athletes. Being an athlete myself, I thought this would be cool. Well, it's not. You know that obnoxious "jock" in high school who was a complete moron and everybody thought was never going to move on to college? Well they did move onto college and that pretty much sums up most of the student body here at MSJ. The next time I hear "Lil Wayne iz tha bess rapper alive, yo!", I'm going to lose it. Also, for some reason, there tends to be a lot of older students that take classes at MSJ. When I say older, I'm talking like 58 years old. This wouldn't be problem except that, in my experience, they ask the most moronic questions that could be easily answered if they had been listening or had general knowledge of numbers and how they work.

The food here is pretty good, but the mealplan hours are absolutely retarded, e.g. the food courts aren't open for long. There's also no restaurants around MSJ, so you kind of have to deal with being hungry after 7pm during the week and 4pm on weekends. That is, unless you have a car. The president of the college came to my IDS 100 class and when someone asked about the food court hours, he said something along these lines: "we plan on you guys not using all of your mealplans..."

MSJ is also no fun whatsoever. There's nothing to do on the weekends and you're left bidding for rides to an off campus house party. There's nothing here and/or around it, period. I end up visiting friends at other colleges or universities every other weekend because this place just flat out sucks.

In conclusion, MSJ lacks diversity, fun, and legitimate classes/instructors (some classes and instructors are absolutely great). It's a complete turn off to education. Anyone looking for a "college experience" shouldn't go here. This school is a complete rip-off for how much you're paying. I was billed for almost $35,000. For a couple grand more, I could go to a much better college. The same could be said about a college that cost much less. I originally went to MSJ to play NCAA sports and the small class sizes, but that doesn't really make the price tag worth it.

And to clear things up, I'm not a shut-in or an anti-social type of person. I'm a normal "college kid" who enjoys the "normal college things" like occasionally drinking and partying. It's just the place and everyone in it seem so backward. It doesn't give me the same genuine "college" feeling that I get at other universities or colleges. It feels more like a mediocre high school more than anything. I guess that's why some of the students (even upperclassmen) show no signs of growing up and still act like they're in 8th grade, because well... it's like high school all over again. I pray for the day this school year ends so that I can transfer.

There are more issues, like how they lost my file with all my financial aid information, but I just stated some off the top of my head.

1st Year Male -- Class 2014

Education Quality: A+, University Resource Use/ spending: F