Florida State University

Date: Feb 25 2008
Major: English (This Major's Salary over time)
The first thing you must remember about any school of this type is that it is essentially several schools operating under a single institutional umbrella. Everything from faculty attitudes to classroom resources to student quality runs the gamut - so your experience at a school like FSU can and likely will vary widely depending upon your program and your perspective. Certain programs at FSU will surround you with talented and engaged faculty as well as competitive classroom peers, while others can only be described as mediocre at best. Therefore, I hesitate to write a broad assessment of the university as a whole, as I have only experienced a small portion of it.

In any case, I am a graduate of FSU's much-heralded Creative Writing program. I should note that most of the accolades the school receives for this track are specifically directed at the graduate programs, though the undergraduate curriculum is very similar and uses the same resources so I see little reason to separate them. That's where I ended up , but that isn't where I began.

Yes, 300+ student lecture halls are somewhat common during the first year or two, but they will all but disappear by the time you reach the upper division. In fact, the largest class I took during my senior year only had 18 students.

My first three semesters at FSU were thoroughly awful. Not having the mindset or ambition to do any legitimate soul-searching at the onset of my undergraduate tenure, I originally chose the most convenient major imaginable: business. And so I bumbled my way through a variety of mundane business prerequisites and landed myself with an average GPA and a probationary warning going into my sophomore year (curiously enough, I earned an A- in the dreaded ACG2021 weed-out course without attending class more than a handful of times - the only business class outside of micro and macroecon where I earned better than a C+). As such: ONLY STUDY WHAT YOU WANT TO STUDY.

This is where I first encountered the labyrinth that is state school bureaucracy. You see, I had also been awarded 33 credit hours when I matriculated as a result of placement exams and AP scores from high school, which meant that I was considered an upper division student after just two semesters of actual full time coursework. Unlike a "basic division" student, upper div students need about half a dozen signatures from various deans and advisers before they are able to change majors, particularly when transferring from one college to another (again: "several schools under one umbrella"). Once I had become established with the College of Arts and Sciences as an English major, I had no further dealings with the general university administration - save for those times when A&S disagreed with the Registrar, which was remarkably often (consider the problems I had in getting an accurate grad check, when the Registrar and A&S both had separate requirements and did their own checks). Both your college and the university registrar have the power to place registration stops (for whatever reason - probation, financial obligations, etc), and they do not communicate with one another before doing so. That's where the real fun begins. Also, should you decide to change colleges without having all of the necessary academic prerequisites, expect to have to plead your case before the dean of the college into which you wish to transfer. Quite frankly, had it not been for my mediocre GPA, I would have transferred from FSU at the end of my freshman year.

That all being said, my final two years were comparatively painless (save for the grad check incident mentioned above).

The student body is fairly diverse - and by diverse, I'm not speaking or racial or cultural background, I speak of intelligence, motivation, and attitude. While a great bulk of the student body seems to exist only to fill space, there are also a great deal of highly intelligent and motivated people - if you know where to look (which does involve choosing the right course of study - stay away from vocational majors if you seek deep intellectual companionship). For example: while only 7% of FSU's undergraduate population scored higher than 30 on the ACT (a number which is certain to rise as state budget cuts force the school to reduce FTIC enrollment), that's still 2200 students - more than the entire student body of many elite liberal arts colleges.

This is a perfect opportunity to describe the school faculty. Again, much depends upon your program, but the school's tenure-track faculty (at least that I have worked with) is largely competent. Academia has become so competitive that even mid-level schools are now staffing their faculty ranks with professors who acquired their terminal degrees through elite programs. I did notice, however, that there is a certain air of bitter condescension amongst senior faculty in many departments - no doubt it must be frustrating to invest so much of yourself into a particular field only to find yourself punished with mediocre students who lack basic skills (e.g. the ability to string words into a grammatically correct sentence) and care little for your class. Don't be discouraged, however. If you're keen, you can actually benefit from this situation: by aggressively presenting yourself as a serious and competent student (an anomaly in the lower division classes), you'll get all the attention (and letters of recommendation) you could possibly want from your instructors.

My final comment relates to some of the grades I assessed above, particularly "competitiveness" and "scholastic success:" students who "work the system" are at a definite advantage over those who don't. I speak specifically about my former department - each semester, there are around 850 students (give or take) seeking one of 100-odd seats in the advanced writing workshops that are required to complete the Creative Writing track. There's a highly competitive application process that goes along with that. Obviously, the vast majority of these students will not succeed; most ultimately end up switching to the Literature track (this is all very well known to anybody in the English department). You might think for a moment that this is a simple consequence of a highly competitive program, and that every student applying to them will get a fair shake on merit alone. That's only partially correct: in some cases, the advanced workshop instructors will also teach the unrestricted entry level classes, and give preference to students that they know (one who shall go unnamed actually passed around a sign-up sheet to everybody in his/her entry-level class - meaning that particular workshop was completely full of mostly undeserving students before anybody else even had a chance to apply). Furthermore, you are allowed to repeat the advanced workshops for additional credit - and students who have already taken one advanced workshop are given automatic priority if they desire to repeat (most do because it's extremely difficult to get a seat in two different workshops). Consequently, up to 2/3rd of the "available" seats are in practice full before the application process officially begins. Obviously, to have a realistic chance of success, you really do have to be incredibly lucky (by taking the right class and getting the right instructor), or you have to know the right people. I was one of only a few who actually managed to run the gauntlet without "working the system," as it were.

I hate to quote the old clich (albeit in modified form), but the returns will be directly proportional to your investment. The school does have a number of highly respectable programs, and (like any large school) significant social opportunities. Play your cards right, and you should find yourself with a worthwhile education and at least a couple years of pleasant memories. Screw it up and, well…