The University of Mississippi

Date: Oct 24 2007
Major: Economics (This Major's Salary over time)
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.