Southeast Missouri State University

Date: Apr 04 2011
Major: Other (This Major's Salary over time)
I came to Missouri State for two reasons; it was cheap, and it was far away from my parents. Probably not the best reasons to choose any school.

I got my degree in the Media, Film and Journalism department, which is going through a serious transition right now - they just added a multimedia journalism class, and they're working on integrating more "new media" coursework to give students a better skillset for the evolving media field. Electronic arts and production students have a great chance to take a lot of classes and cover a lot of ground. If you're in the right program, you'll get the chance to learn many editing tools and get a lot of technical skill.

However, it really is what you make of it. You have to put a lot of time and effort into making sure you get what you want out of this school. In my experience, advisors are largely worthless. A few teachers will take an interest in you if you stand out, but the majority are used to empty glazes. Some (in other departments) are really there to sit on their hands once they get tenure.

The student body is also really pathetic. There is no real "voice" on campus, the SGA rubberstamps whatever the Board of Governors decides to do with student money, and it's difficult to get anyone to care about anything. A lot of them are there to get degrees so they can get jobs - although there are obvious exceptions, I've found that most people were just very lackluster about new experiences, political and social issues… it's hard these people to care about anything.

The school pours all it's money into a losing football team, even though the basketball teams do better. There's lingering controversy about the big arena stadium that was built a few years back, audits have shown how money was handled very, very poorly, they just switched food service providers to Chartwells (citing financial considerations as a top priority, while the food has always been extremely low quality) - long story short, this school will do it's best to waste all the money it gets. It's not like the buildings are ALL falling apart - one underwent a major renovation and another was just re-roofed, but there are still serious issues on campus - money largely goes towards athletics and little else. "Going greek" is a very big thing here, and the campus is surrounded by a "campus ghetto" littered with "Natty light" (Natural Light Beer) and ratty apartments with business and econ majors who have started working on the nests of mediocrity they plan to live in for the rest of their life.

Springfield is a terrible place to go to college. Downtown is nice and there are some cool local businesses, but Springfield is largely uninspiring, isolated, and a quality time is hard to find and depends on the people who are with you. The zoo is nice. The students seem to spend most of their time clubbing downtown.

Basically, go here if you're really passionate about Theatre and Dance (it's a good program, from what I hear). Go here if you are really into Missouri politics (there's a legislative internship with the state capitol). Go here if you hear about a program that you can't find somewhere else in Missouri. Go don't have any other options. But also, go here if you don't have much money, if your parents are paying for it and all you want to do is party, if your friends are going here and you have no individual ambition. Because with the way things are run here, it's not hard for another school to outshine Missouri State.