Boise State University

Date: Apr 21 2010
Major: English (This Major's Salary over time)
Okay, so I read another review talking about how campus life sucks and the students are arrogant and unapproachable. That is all true.

However, if you are only interested in the academics - I still recommend you DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME OR MONEY. The school stressed how low cost it is - HA! PLEASE. First of all, the instate tuition is comparable to out-of-state in most cases. Second of all, you are forced to pay $500 for health insurance every semester that doesn't cover ANYTHING.

I don't know if all of the faculty got degrees from "degree mills", or were simply the bottom of their classes. I can name TWO professors I took the entire time that were at all competent, and it's interesting that they had both just transferred from other schools. Given the culture of mediocrity and the low level of expectations, I do not expect them to remain competent for long. So-called "experts" in their field often had not studied the field at all. One particular professor bragged about being an "expert" in Southern Literature, and when I asked about her credentials she got extremely uncomfortable and finally admitted that her "research" involved a weekend at a conference every year.

The teachers are rude and interrupt students. Oftentimes I would be interrupted in the middle of a sentence, the professor would "guess" at me saying one thing when I was saying another, and to make matters worth the comment that they guessed would NEVER have been considered correct by anybody who knows anything about the literature.

You are not graded on merit, you are graded on how much you can boost the professor's ego. If you write a paper supporting an argument and the professor does not agree, you are given an F. Of course, they do not give you their opinion before you write the paper, so you're just screwed. The arguments in papers don't have to be SOUND, they have to be what the professor thinks.

In one case I was told to rewrite a paper and given specific instructions. When I followed the specific instructions, I was still given an F. When I approached the dean of the department about it, he informed me that

instructions are not meant to be taken literally.

WHAT PLANET DO THESE PEOPLE LIVE ON? Never in my LIFE have I been given instructions and then informed that I didn't have to follow them.

You are graded on how much the teacher likes you - and if you are gifted and they feel threatened by your intelligence? Forget it. I have a genius level IQ, and considering I was an arts major I thought that my work would be graded on merit. It seems that, if a teacher feels you call their credentials into question, you are automatically failed.

I should mention that I never challenged anyone's credentials until I had to fight my grades. The question,

where did you study?

seems to be enough to piss them off.

If you're disabled and not white or are any kind of religious minority, don't even try. Their "disability services" were so awful that I had to call in an outside agency, and when I did the agency told me they often have to deal with disabled students who do not get accommodations given to them by the Americans with Disabilities Act. I would receive emails from disability services, who would then deny sending them the emails, and when I forwarded THEIR OWN EMAILS TO THEM to prove they had in fact sent them - I did not receive a response.

It is of note that I received a FULL refund of my last semester there. I made enough noise that they finally realized they may have a lawsuit on their hands.

Religious minorities are treated like crap, by both faculty and students. At best you are treated as a curiosity and people ask nosy questions and then try to convert you. I am white, so I cannot speak to minority experience from anything personal, but the minorities I have spoken to have told me it's the same with them. Additionally, being a minority seems to make them not take you seriously! I have never in my entire life witnessed the kind of small-mindedness I did in Boise, Idaho.