Towson University

Date: Jul 28 2011
Major: Geography and Geosciences (This Major's Salary over time)
At 27 I'm not your typical Towson student. I treat it like I treat my job: Show up, do the tasks, go home to my wife and son.

There are two types of TU students: those who will have spent their money on worthwhile degrees and those who will go into crippling debt for a 30-40K/year job and many more will end up at Starbucks or Sam's Club anyway. That's any school though and not endemic to Towson. When 70% of the population has degrees they're no longer an indication that you have value to an employer over someone who doesn't.

The professors are friendly enough and you get out of school what you put into it. If you're there to learn and improve your skill set you most likely will. If you're there to drink and get humped then that's what you'll do, and then you'll whine about how school sucks and life is unfair. Unfortunately this is typical of the student body in America.

Safety: I understand why some of the girls are upset. It's dark and campus gets unruly at night when dorm kids have nothing to do (well school work but screw that right?). I don't think rapes happen but due to feminism the girls are allowed to wear the uniform and they often go home with guys they regret and then complain about it the next day. There is a lot of break-ins and muggings from mostly non-students and in the police reports they're almost always part of the "diverse" crowd which seems to be moving out of the city into once safe white areas. There's a police report e-mail once every 2-3 days and photos don't lie.

I don't doubt student's complaints about being numbers or not having their finances handled correctly (some of the burden is on the students of course) but the biggest problem I've had with TU has been scheduling. Classes you NEED are hard to get into and there's often one section for either the semester or even the whole year limited to 30 or so students. Of course by the time you're allowed to register 200 level courses will be taken up by seniors if they're required for a major [example 60 bio students trying to get into a required 200 lvl. lab class semester after semester but there's only 30 slots and they wonder why only seniors are in the class]. The times of course will never match up. If you live on campus great, but if you have a job or a family you're better off elsewhere.

Maintenence and Asthetics: there's not really much you can do. Between the campus buildings, the sports fields and three or more giant parking garages there isn't much room for greenery. Don't worry about it, there's a great library and those of us adults who live off campus (in a house, not those crappy apartments across the street) get to see other sights. BTW, in the library there is a great selection of books, though most kids will play games or have facebook up when you really need a computer to write something, send an e-mail, pay a bill or check your investments. I feel like unplugging the next F-er I see on YouTube or Facebook.

So, pros and cons. Overall: B minus.