The University of San Diego

Date: Aug 02 2004
Major: Communications (This Major's Salary over time)
USD might work for some select people, but it's definitely not for everyone. When I was there it was referred to as "The country club on the hill". So true. If you live on campus (or you live off campus but on your own…not with mom and dad) and you know what your major is, USD is maybe just OK and it'll be fun. If you're a commuter student/living at home or you're not sure what you want your major to be, it's a colossal waste of money. It's not large enough to have a good choice of majors to pick from for the undecided and Business is about the only "robust" one. It's hellaciously expensive. If you're not upper middle class or higher, you won't feel like there are others there "like you" at all. SDSU or UCSD offer so much more bang for the buck simply because USD is so outrageous in terms of tuition. Amazing for all that money that nobody's even heard of the place…even locally! Anytime anyone local asked where I went (even today, like on job interviews) and I say "USD", they think state or UCSD.

Faculty is OK academically (but not remarkable) and class sizes and teacher-student ratio are good, but if you're really trying to figure out what you want to do or major in, I'm not sure they're all that helpful in giving direction or suggestions or inspirational. Theatre department (at least back then…I graduated back in '92) was laughable, often not even having more than one class total per semester. Comm. Studies Mass Media majors back then didn't have any radio or campus TV stations (and this was the 2nd largest major!). USD is all about majoring in business. If you're not majoring in that, seriously look elsewhere.