(SDSU) I hated the psychology graduate program at SDSU

How this student rated the school

Alumni Survey

Describes the student body as: Describes the faculty as:

Female

Quite Bright

Lowest Rating

Highest Rating

Date: Aug 26 2012
Major: Psychology (This Major's Salary over time)
I hated the psychology graduate program at SDSU. I felt almost totally unsupported in the program, academically, professionally, & financially. Students are told not to work full-time, but not how to survive on assistantship pay; & expected to work excessive hours in those assistantships. Classes taught me little beyond my undergrad courses, & many consisted almost exclusively of student presentations - highly dependent on the quality of peers' work, & not what I came for. While a few individual professors were really wonderful, most seemed minimally interested in teaching their graduate classes. This program is useful only as a stepping stone to another program- it does not lead to licensure or a degree that is really worth much professionally. The environment seems to be everything negative you have heard about academia- gossip, politics, & back stabbing. I left the program for another grad school: this was not the environment of learning & professional interaction I had expected, & certainly not the type of environment in which I want to take part.

Responses

You posted in the Undergrad section but you are a Grad student.

I didn't want to be at SDSU either, but I couldn't afford a good school.

Where did you transfer to and how does that place compare to SDSU? Did other grad students in other departments like sciences or engineering have similar negative experiences?

Seriously? What the hell did you expect to do with a BA in psychology?

A job in counseling or social services only require a BA or less. The grad student who wrote this review was obviously seeking a real graduate program and was genuinely disappointed with the one at SDSU. According to Forbes, the top U.S. grad schools for psychology are: Stanford, Berkeley, UCLA, Harvard, U of Mich Ann Arbor, Yale, Princeton, U of Ill Urbana Champaign, and MIT. And that's just for starters. I hope you find a good program, or at least one that's even a little bit respectable.

What can she do with a BA in psych at this point? For one thing, she can just be a teacher, it doesn't take much education, skills, or knowledge. Everyone knows it. Some 4 year universities hire folks with just a BA to be adjunct instructors.

Ask a Question or add a response!