(Bryant) Just complete my junior year as a Finance Major

How this student rated the school

Educational Quality	F	Faculty Accessibility	D
Useful Schoolwork	D	Excess Competition	D
Academic Success	F	Creativity/ Innovation	F
Individual Value	F	University Resource Use	B
Campus Aesthetics/ Beauty	A+	Friendliness	D
Campus Maintenance	A+	Social Life	C-
Surrounding City	F	Extra Curriculars	C-
Safety	B-

Describes the student body as: Friendly, Approachable Describes the faculty as: Arrogant, Condescending, Unhelpful, Self Absorbed

Male

Not so bright

Lowest Rating Educational Quality	F

Highest Rating Campus Aesthetics/ Beauty	A+

He cares more about Educational Quality than the average student.

Date: Aug 24 2010
Major: Finance (This Major's Salary over time)
Just complete my junior year as a Finance Major here at Bryant and I have to say that coming here was a terrible idea. The campus is beautiful, clean, and campus security does a great job at keeping the campus safe. The athletic center is state of the art and so is the Bello Technology center, but, that doesn't provide the education your paying for. The curriculum is no different than any of the surrounding colleges and universities that are helf the cost. The per course cost is ridiculous, over $2000.00 (just for the class and the book) and the faculty are condescending, arrogant, and could care less about the students. I have friends who are also majoring in Finance at Rhode Island College, Johnson and Wales University, and the University of Rhode Island (in-state) and are spending much less for there education. They are taking the same courses and covering the same material for half the cost and they are taught by the same adjunct faculty that I am paying 100%-150% more for. Needless to say, I'll be graduating with a huge tuition bill, about 100K for my undergrad degree. Also, the faculty here are completely unapproachable. They are more concerned with their own research then ever taking the time to help students one on one. They just tell you to meet with a tutor instead. So, I pay over 2K, per course, to be taught by tutors and adjunct faculty my friends are also being taught by. Awesome! Now, I'm no genius but am no idiot either (currently have a 3.30 GPA). Professors are more concerned with their own personal academic conquests and notariety than the students they teach. And the advisors, they are lazy to the core. Forget about asking for help, they're useless and don't want to do anything that will force them to go out of their way to help the students. With regards to the campus…BORING. It's located in Noth Smithfield, RI aka, boringville. The campus is about 20 miles from Providence so you need a bit of a drive to get anywhere, just can't walk out of your dorm and go out somewhere other than the parking lot, then the woods. In my opinion, the education is not worth the money and if I had the opportunity, I would have gone to a less expensive college/university for the lower cost and spent my money on Graduate school, and not even this one, I would have attended a school in Providence or Boston where I don't need to drive 20 minutes to go out during the day or at night. Instead, I'll be graduating with a 100K undergrad tuition bill, taking the same exact courses I could have taken for a fraction of the cost, and with no guarantee I'll find a job in this economy. My advice is stay away from this University. You'll get the same exact education for half the cost, at other local schools. Bryant is like a halloween costume, looks good on the outside, but, you don't know what hides beneath it until you make the committment.

Responses

I graduated from Bryant in 2005. I got an academic scholarship but because the school is so expensive, I still had some loans but not much. The truth is, I don't think Bryant is for people who are not outstanding enough to get a scholarship neither is it for people whose families can't afford to cover the cost of their education. You could go to URI, UMass or some other state school in the area and pay a lot less.

As far as the school's location, and social life (or the lack thereof), that's not the school's fault at all. I used to lead campus tours when I was there and I used to advise students to make sure they consider what it would mean to go to school in a small rural town for 4 years. If you come to Bryant, you can't turn around and complain about it being a small town since that's something you should have noticed before you went there. I loved the fact that it was secluded. My life was all about academics and it paid off.

My concentration was information systems and of course, I took other courses outside my major. I was one of those kids that asked questions in class and went to see the professors afterwards and I can say that of the 10's of professors I dealt with, I never ever felt that the professors were condescending or arrogant.

Statistically speaking, the number of professors I dealt with might not be representative so you may just have been unlucky to have ended up with the all the jerks. But again, tools like ratemyprofessor could have helped you make better choices. Also, it's worth pointing out that there are arrogant jerks at every University. Your own confidence level, if it's high should be an adequate antidote to their arrogance.

As far as I know, there isn't a whole lot of research going on at Bryant. It's not a research university. The reason a lot of people teach at schools like Bryant is precisely because they don't want to do research. You comment about the professors being more about their research than about helping students might be inaccurate except of course the culture of the school has changed completely in the last 5 years but I really doubt that.

It's a bad economy everywhere so not many students have guaranteed job prospects. With that said though, students that are leading the pack will be in good shape because of Bryant's excellent career services office. If you attend their programs, talk to the people there and have a strong GPA , you will get good internships which tend to lead to good jobs.

You shouldn't advise people to stay away. You should tell them to KNOW WHAT THEY WANT and then measure Bryant against the criteria that they consider most important to them. I suspect you didn't do that or the people around you did not do a good job in preparing you for a college search.

The advisors were good to me. I dealt only with Paul Reilly and Margarete. Again, my experience with them was very good.

I loved the my professors (except Kristin Kennedy that taught Stats), my internship, the job offers that the career services on campus recruiting program helped me get, my friends, playing in the intramural basketball league, being a resident assistant, being a member of various campus organizations and I love the fact that the President of the school as well as the faculty knew my name. I love how quiet it was. I loved the library, the technology and the facilities.

I hope you are able to figure it out. Bryant is just another good school. Not exceptional but good. You definitely get what you put in. A lot of your complaints reflect on you and not on the school (except your comments about the professors and the advisors).

P.S.: You give security at Bryant a B-? In Smithfield Rhode Island? Also, how is it that friendliness is an F if the student body