Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Date: Dec 31 1969
Major: Physics (This Major's Salary over time)
I spent 2 .5 years here, and did not have a good experience, changes are implemented in the program at whim, including changing the degree requirements after the fact, i was required to take a bunch of useless teaching courses that we were told we had to have so that the departments ass was covered in case we screwed up in a classroom teaching.

This department is not recommended. It is struggling thru a difficult time of adjustment and change, and there are major problems with TA work load( 35+ hours a week at its worst), courses that are coverage oriented not comprehension oriented. The chair of the graduate committee is the kind of guy whom will make all sorts of promises to you and will do nothing to back them up, do not rely on anything he says. politics are an issue here, all kinds of things. Dr Phillies is helpful and has a good track record of producing PhDs but the rest of the faculty are sketchy at best. They have a brillant quantum optics guy , Zolzulya, but his classes are terrible, and he operates on the russian teaching philosophy of "throw a dozen eggs against a wall and the one that doesn't break is your star student" I cannot recommend this program to anyone, there are simply too many problems here, none of which will be addressed in the near future. and having watched too many students flounder here I only hope that someone considering this will think twice