Drexel University

Date: Nov 11 2009
Major: Economics (This Major's Salary over time)
When I first applied here, the application fee was waived, they accepted me early, and I got into the honors college so I thought "hey, I have a safety net." But when I got into others schools, my parents saw that drexel gave me a $15K scholarship and did the math. (Please don't let a little money trick you into coming here. They say their scores for applicants increased even though they gave out less scholarship money, but they only gave smaller scholarships to just as many people because I don't know anyone who isn't on scholarship - up and down the achievement spectrum. Ask for the numbers and see if they make sense. Oh and don't fall for the Dean's Scholarship or Global Scholars Scholarship; it's just a cajoling with a fancy name on it.) Seriously, just applying here is a mistake because they will hound you like a recruitment officer or a local technical school to try and paint the picture for you and your parents of the "wonderful opportunities of drexel". They try to hide that they're just like one of those schools that can tell you how much scholarship you'll receive if you tell them your SAT score over the phone. (And think about it, you would never go to one of those schools, so why come here? It's all spray painted-gold!)

So what can I tell you now that I'm here? The good news: I'm transferring!!!

No but really, here's the run-down. This school is painful in so many ways.

The first thing you realize is that the food in the cafeteria sucks and all the food around campus is unhealthy, overpriced and disgusting. I wouldn't feed any of it to my dog. Some people tell you to just walk to Penn for good food, but, one, no one on a real college campus should have to go to another campus to get food, and, two, no one should have to walk 15-20 minutes one way and 15-20 minutes back to get a decent lunch or dinner (the dorms are ridiculously far from everything). Breakfast is now just cereal in my room for me. And by the way, the dragon card is useless at most places (even at the terribly run 7/11 across the street from the dorms), so just get the smallest meal plan you can and pay in cash or use a debit card; it saves you so much and makes a lot more sense (debit accepted everywhere, dragon card accepted at taco bell).

Secondly, the dorms. Oh god, could they be any further from everything!! You have to walk across campus to everything, classes, dining hall, library, events, everything; it's like they were built as an afterthought. I?ll get into this more later. My room is in itself not bad. It's in Race, suite styled, not sure why there's a sink in the walkway and there's no vent for the showers and the air conditioning really doesn't matter because the floor's always cold, the couches they give you are crap but you can't toss them out, the people from this area wear their outdoor clothing all the time so they turn the air conditioning on in the winter, a lot of people on the floor are nerds (it?s the honors dorm) so they go to parties and come back drunk screaming or just screaming because they don't want to seem boring or… abnormal?, the rec rooms always look like crap and have nothing in them, though I hear towers has nice stuff in it if you're okay living in a sardine can; the nearby gym is a maze, ross commons only has pool and a tacky room that's supposed to look classy but fails if you sit down on the couch and realize no one put thought into designing the room. I think I've hit on everything about living facilities. There is no grass worth playing on (7/11 garbage usually ends up on the only real space of grass). The gym is pretty comprehensive, though the people there usually look like they're on steroids; the gym in this dorm has pretty much nothing in it. And going for a walk around campus isn't enjoyable. Even that Bossone building, built by that famous architect, looks like he was payed a lot to sign his name to the project. Now getting into the quality more, there is no substance to drexel life or education. They get the cheapest things they can find, put no care into it, just to say that they have that facility. Students are there to pay them to get a degree and move on. You'll see that the quality applies to the education as well. Papadakis was paid over a million dollars a year to fundraise, not to educate. Your paying for a degree, not an education. You might find one on the way, if you put out effort that you should have already paid for, but that's not their first concern. Seriously, you can get a group of students to complain about a professor and they don't give a damn. It?s all about the green. We live in the bad part of the city, where people from the worst parts of town live and walk around the less patrolled parts of campus asking for change, and the rest of the city sees the university as a traffic block on their way to the train station, which is also a traffic mess. The tour guides purposefully go through the good angles of the school (,which usually isn?t where most of the students go,) and avoid the vents from the sewer spewing nauseating air up to the walkways. If you want a real tour of drexel, take the shortest path from the main building to race dorms. You?ll feel like the college is more city than college.

I guess I should talk about classes now. First, your 50K-valued education has them signing you up for classes of their choice for your first semester, which, by the way, only increases the chance of getting a shitty professor. I can say that I only had one good teacher this term, the rest sucked outrageously. I?m still getting A?s because I?m jumping through the hoops but I thought this childishness went away with high school and that maybe people who are paying 50K a year might be treated like adults. Instead, all the teachers I?ve heard about from the english requirement they sign you up for give you pointless work and hate that they?re teaching freshmen; they?re usually pretty dumb and bent on getting the basic requirements for their english majors out of the way (which is their complete education usually). The honors seminars are a waste of time that you have to go through. University 101 is not helpful and teeth-grinding. Math classes are usually taught by people who are brilliant at math but really shouldn?t be teaching. I like my sociology teacher, but the material does go by the book too much (he literally has to say when he?s not going by the book to say what he wants to say - though the tests are straight from the book). No matter what your major is, you?re going to get accredited, not educated. It?s only rarely, when a poor soul who is too good to be here, cares about you that you?ll get a good education. Academically, it?s like a refugee camp among American Universities. All I can say is that the cause, the common denominator for all drexel classes, is that they go by the book (they?re very proud of their accreditations), but they?re not academic in the true sense of the word. You will not be satisfied with a drexel education. I can guarantee you.

I guess the final thing of note is the administration and registering for classes. Your advisors won?t be of help; it?s all up to you (real life experience or paying a dick to do nothing?). I had to go to my honors advisor after talking with my first advisor to get me into a class; he called the person in charge, my advisor gave up at first glance. (Pennoni looks out for its name, but the real advisors couldn?t give a shit because you have to pay them regardless.) Also, if you?re not an athlete or in Pennoni, good luck getting into the classes you want because you can check, they?re full and you?re scraping the bottom of the barrel. Class sizes are okay, but a lot of these teachers I would rather be in a large class, hidden from, because you don?t have the opportunity to change classes from a bad to good teacher, especially if you?re BS/MD. Also, when I showed my AP?s, history let me choose which of the three US history sections I wanted to be exempt from (because I?m qualified for all of them but some teachers need to clock in teaching hours and waste my money). Even better, I?m also an econ major and I got 5?s on my AP?s (why am I here? I know.) so I get exempt from basic micro- and macro-, however, I can?t go into the next level because those are for sophomores, so now I?m waiting a year, without practice, for everyone to catch up, so that I can be on a track (there?s no breaking the track; that?s holy to these bureaucratic SOB?s). Any AP credit you get makes the school look nice on your entrance, but then they put you on hold so that the system doesn?t get complicated. AP Gov = 3 credits, which means you spent a year, taking a college level course for a class that runs 10 weeks; I know you played around somewhat in class, but there?s no way in hell it?s only worth 10 weeks. Also, on the administration, they?re a bunch of bureaucrats who get paid for clocking hours and protecting the university?s interest - not yours. They don?t care about you. They don?t like you and don?t ever want to talk to you (when I say talk to you, that?s how you should be reading it, they see it as putting up with you). You don?t succeed or thrive at drexel. You survive it. It?s truly a holocaust in terms of education; they take something peaceful and innocent, like learning about the world, and make up lies and tricks to profit off the unfortunate soul who doesn?t read the writings on the wall and doesn?t get away as quickly as possible; they want to strip you of your money and get away with not providing you an education. Seriously, if you pay them 200K they will gladly give you a degree, but you don?t want that for yourself. It?s a waste of your money and your life.

If anything: DON?T COME HERE! FOR YOUR OWN SAKE!

To hide my identity, the e-mail address given transfers to my regular e-mail.