The University of Hawaii Manoa

Date: Feb 28 2004
Major: Psychology (This Major's Salary over time)
So far, I can confirm most of what has been said on this site, except for the "mainland" issue. It is not so much about people who come from the mainland that are discriminated, in fact if you come from the mainland and look Asian, Mixed, African-American, or Native American you will probably end up feeling more at home here than you ever did ANYWHERE on the mainland. But if you look white, and this applies to people who are white and were born and raised here, you will probably feel outcasted. But that applies to all of Hawai'i. There is a lot of white discrimination in Hawai'i, but it is not rampant and plenty of people who look white can come here and do very well academically and be happy.

The largest complaint I have is the lack of funding at the University. It is quite a disgrace. The library used to be very good, but now it has been cut so severely, the library is really just a storage place for out-dated books now. The legislature here only cares about "tourists" who after a while make you pretty sick.

Politics are very corrupt here. If you get a job working at the University and this applies to student/research assistance, lab technicians and even medical faculty, you will not see your first pay-check until 4-6 months after you have started working. So if you plan on coming to the University and living off wages you earn here, bring a cash reserve!

Finally, faculty come from a variety of places. Some are very good, some are mediocre and some are just sad. Despite the truly sad looking campus (who has a beautiful fountain, but can't afford to run it anytime during the year), Hawai'i has nice weather to make up for it. When you graduate from here, be careful. UofH isn't the most prestigious of schools and depending on what you graduated with (this applies to both undergrads and grads) you might be looked at with skepticism, since most people know how incredibly little Hawai'i cares about educating its people.