While
attending and shortly after leaving I would have given Ole
Miss an A+. However, after spending 15+ years
working and experiencing students and schools along the eastern seaboard
I think Ole Miss is a huge disappointment. I
have been successful in life but where I have failed
it is due to the complete lack of training in
the basics Ole Miss should have taught me. Examples
include more stringent academic requirements in writing and creative thought,
Group/Public speaking, true in-depth understanding of your major, etc. My tremendous social growth while there and the
beautiful campus and traditions are some of the only positives
of Ole Miss. I was a partying frat
boy like most others and got away with mediocrity as
a student due to lax academic standards and lax instructors
who would give me a “by” because it seemed they
were just as enamored with the culture and campus as
we were. When I re-read English
and Economics papers I wrote there in which I received
B or better, I'm quite embarrassed. Today I would
not hire someone with the lack of scholarship I myself
received there UNLESS they were quite exceptional in other ways.
Which, by the way, Oxford does excel; creating A+
characters by the shear existence of the powerful social scene.
Ole Miss is good enough that an outstanding student can
make a lot out of it, but the average to
lesser student will not by pushed or disciplined into the
outstanding scholarship they are deluding themselves into thinking they are
getting. It is too easy to just “skate” by...
While drunk.
p.s. possibly it is much less distracting
to not be in a frat (like I was) yet
most independents I knew were not nearly as happy there.
Especially non-greek girls. I did LOVE it there,
but as a father now I would have to think
very hard about sending any of my children there and
wasting my money.
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