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| Quite Bright |
GMU sucks. If you have dreams of professional success, go elsewhere. If your only goal in life is to obtain a meaningless government job as a robot, GMU is the perfect place.
Students can largely be segregated into two groups:
1) Spoil, rich kids who are too stupid for their wise affluent parents to justify tuition elsewhere
2) Really bright hard-working individuals from humble backgrounds and cannot afford higher tuitions at quality schools
Unfortunately, the administration's stated mission is to become the "college of Northern Virginia" and are striving to grow the student body by leaps-and-bounds. Thus, more and more student in category 1 are being admitted and the administration is not focused on quality education to attract more students from category 2.
The School of Management is a joke. More students than not were struggling with the concept of net present value....AND these were finance majors in senior level finance courses.
Do not choose GMU unless you have no ambitions. | Faculty Accessibility: A, Education Quality: F |  | | |
| | Jul 07 2004 | 4th Year Male --
Class 2002 | | Blog it!Blog about this comment from your webpage or Blog, or MySpace account:
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| Quite Bright |
This is my opinion on George Mason University.
The undergraduate student populace is average (I base this on conversations I had with many of them during my two-year program). The graduate schools, on the other hand, are innovative; and I rank the graduate student population as above average, and some are simply brilliant. Given the disparities between the graduate and undergraduate student populations, it seems at times as if GMU is running parallel institutions.
GMU states that it has three campuses: Arlington, Fairfax, and Prince William. The truth is that the Fairfax campus is the main campus, while Arlington and Prince William are mere satellites.
The Fairfax campus has two libraries, the dorms, the sports complexes, and the majority of the academic programs (undergrad, grad, and doctorate). The Arlington campus is urban and houses the law school, a law library, and a few graduate programs (including my own); the Prince William’s campus specializes in biotechnology.
A note on libraries: GMU shares it’s libraries with George Washington University, American University, Catholic University, University of Maryland-College Park, UDC, and Marymount University. Therefore, if you cannot find a book at GMU, you can go to any of the above-listed colleges. Georgetown University does not have an agreement with GMU.
Undergraduates wishing to be smack in the middle of DC action or near it will be disappointed. Nearly all undergrads live on the very suburban Fairfax campus; and the City of Fairfax is NO college town! Don’t expect a huge array of pubs and cafes to hangout like one would find in Williamsburg, Princeton, or Syracuse. And off campus housing is expensive! The DC-metro areas is preposterously expensive. A one-bedroom apartment averages around $1200 without utilities. The good news: those wishing to go to DC on the weekends can take GMU’s free shuttle to the metro station.
The program I graduate from, Master of Arts in International Transactions (now know as International Commerce and Policy) is an interdisciplinary degree geared for those wishing to working in government, international business, or NGOs. This program was originally part of the International Institute (it has since been dissolved). The original institute’s staff was small, specialized, and caring. They guided their students in their studies and career paths. In my opinion, they did an excellent job in tying all the academic stuff with the real work.
During my second year, the program was transferred to the School of Public Policy (SPP), then, Institute of Public Policy. My experience with SPP has been somewhat negative. I found the professors quite despondent, unsupportive, and at times downright mean. It was shocking to see the cultural differences between departments and hands off approach of SPP’s professors. But let me reiterate: my experience with the SPP only shows one view and I would encourage anyone wishing to apply to the school to find other students and get their opinions.
The degree has proven to be a double-edged sword. After graduation, degree-in-hand, I found it hard to find employment with the federal government (stating not enough work experience), private sectors employers, NGOs and international organanizations because many did not know what the degree meant, or simply dismissed me as ‘overqualified’. I consider my master’s degree an expensive waste of time; the degree has not served me in the workplace. I credit my career advancement to professional development courses I took in programming, web design, and project management at the local community college and basic, on-the-job training.
My experience notwithstanding, a GMU degree is highly regarded in Virginia and in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. The GMU degree I believe, despite some employers being perplexed by my major, has given me an advantage over others just because of the name recognition.
Despite my negative experience, the School of Public Policy overall ranks pretty high in the region. GMU’s masters in public administration and public finance are outstanding (I took some courses, so I know); and GMU’s law school is in the top 50 nationally; and GMU has an excellent staff that including two Nobel winners in economics.
Finally, GMU is cheap! It is a real bargain when compared to other school in the DC area (even for out-of-stater).
Thus, I would recommend GMU to anyone interested in the University, whether at the undergraduate, graduate, or post-graduate levels. | Starting Job: Customer Service Rep, Preparedness: -, Reputation: - | | |
| | Nov 26 2002 | Alumnus Male --
Class 2000 | | Blog it!Blog about this comment from your webpage or Blog, or MySpace account:
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| Quite Bright |
GMU does not provide you with a college education, rather, a set of tools to help you work the system. A lot of the people in the career-oriented majors (IT, Business, etc.) care more about trying to gain an advantage over the next person instead of learning together and having fun for 4 years. With that being said, this school does not care about your grades, they care about the number of internships you are doing while juggling your schoolwork. When I talked to the Dean of IT & Engineering, he basically frowned upon me for having a 3.95 because I had no internships. When I rebutted him and asked what if one can't handle doing an internship during the semester, he basically said it's not our problem because it came out of his mouth, not the university's official statement.
Second, social life is a joke here. I had more fun in high school than in college. Here, nothing happens on campus; especially weekends. If you're ever on campus on the "weekends" (which starts on Friday since GMU is trying to phase out Friday classes in favor of a symmetrical Mon & Weds/Tues & Thurs system), you'll see it's almost a ghost town. Most of the food places on campus are closed, most students aren't on campus, and the people you do see on campus are either faculty or people studying. Even if it's not the weekend, there's rarely any student activities worth going to -- they're happening, but only a small handful of students participate in them.
Third, the staff here don't know a single clue about their job. Expect to get a run-around if you have to deal with Financial Aid or any other part of the Mason Bureaucracy.
Fourth, the student population is like high school, but with a twist. Expect to assume the same role you had in high school cliqueography (if you're a loner, expect 4 more years of lonerness, if you're the metalhead, you'll find more metalheads, etc.) but also play the race card. The mideast students that speak arabic will hang by themselves, the black urban students by themselves, the koreans by themselves, and so forth. Also, I forgot to add two new cliques: the night commuters who dropped out of high school but now decided to get a GED and a college education and the seniors who decided to go to college before they die.
This review is becoming quite long, so I'll end with this question for you: Are you more concerned about obsessing about every competitive edge you can get in the rat race and not caring about the memories (or lack thereof) you will make along the way or are you more concerned about having the chance to learn with your peers, getting an education, while at the same time having fun and maturing? If you fall into the first category, go to mason. The surroundings give you ample opportunity for that. If you're in the second category, do yourself a favor--go to another university. People have been saying the "Mason is on it's way up" motif since the day Mason opened but there's no indication that it's "on it's way up." Are you willing to throw four years of your life away into this motif which doesn't seem to have proven itself or do you want to spend four years of your life at another place which isn't "on it's way up" but already there?
P.S. For those who are citing the living-on-campus student population numbers, please don't skew your numbers. While Mason may have the largest number of students living on campus in Virginia, Mason also has the largest student body in Virginia; more than tech, and more than william & mary's wimpy ~4000 body. Because each school's total number of students is different, you have to compare the numbers by ratio or percentage to give an accurate representation. With that being said, even if Mason's on campus body is the largest in Virginia, there are still more students living off campus than on. | Collaboration/Competitive: A, Scholastic Success: F | | | |
| | Dec 31 2007 | 2nd Year Male --
Class 2010 | | Blog it!Blog about this comment from your webpage or Blog, or MySpace account:
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