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Union University

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Date: May 25 2010
Major: Finance (This Major's Salary over time)
For $30,000 a year you get to go to a school where most of the departments are not accredited (MacAfee School of Business included). During job interviews after college, I never had a single prospective employer who wasn't located in Jackson (Nashville and Memphis included) who had ever heard of Union, so I could have essentially gone to Lambuth or even Freed and had the same chance at getting most of the jobs I applied to. The lack of accreditation did affect me in that I had hoped to go to graduate school, but even with a GPA over 3.0, I was unable to get too much financial assistance. On 2 occasions I was actually told that I would have had a better chance coming from a state school with a lower GPA just because Union is so unproven to provide graduates who were prepared for graduate work.

On the social side, never had a drink until I was 21 - partly by personal choice, and maybe more than I'd like to admit, because I was afraid of the consequences if my school found out. By no means am I saying that alcohol makes or breaks a college social life, but what I am saying is that if you want to do anything that doesn't seem to fit into the Southern Baptist's exceptionally legalistic view of how 18-22 year olds should behave, you are in trouble. 3/4 students spend way too much time being paranoid about getting in trouble, or bored out of their minds because there is nothing to do. The social outlets provided by Union were more like church day camp when I was 12 than being in a youth group in high school. You will not be treated like an adult, and on some occasion will probably have to have you parents call to get the staff to do their job. I.E. the student financial services office - they are horrible. I once waited until the end of November to get Union to remember to reimburse me for my scholarships and students loans so that I could pay rent. Oh, and don't live on campus. You are required to buy a meal plan from Aramark (airline food provider). Each meal costs 8 dollars, but 6 dollars of that will go to Union. You are getting a $2 meal every time that will have you leaving the cafeteria scuffling across campus to get to your bathroom. Seriously.

This is absolutely the most accurate portrayal I could give of Union. I enjoyed some of my time, but after being out for a year, I don't know how I survived being treated like a 13 year old for so long when I had already become accustomed to feeling like I was ready to take on adult life at 18.

If I can sum up my biggest problem, this is how I would put it:

Your college experience should be a time where your university and the faculty encourages you to find out who you are, what you want to be in life, and help you through the pitfalls of young adulthood so that you can learn from you mistakes. Union's mindset is that you are not an adult until you graduate. While there, the school attempts to mold you, not into what you were meant to be, but into what the Southern Baptist Convention/Church says everyone should be. If you go here, you won't truly find out who you are until you leave.

If I were you, I would realize that no one goes into life (at 18 or 22) prepared for independence. You just have to make the jump. Go out at 18, scared and apprehensive and go to a school that can help you on your way, and act as a bridge to adulthood, so that when you graduate you haven't just spent 4 years being sheltered and hindered in your walk towards personal growth.

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