Goddard College

Date: Nov 05 2013
Major: Biology (This Major's Salary over time)
I read most of the the reviews, positive and negative. Most have a degree of truth in them. Goddard is and was not for everyone. I have visited the college every few years and twice since it became low residential. I find the student who thrives at Goddard to be much the same as when I was there in the mid-60s. The graduate students I talked to for the most part came from excellent colleges and universities and told me it definitely had not become a diploma mill. They felt it was very selective and even then, many could not accept the rigor required from the faculty. That is the way I remember Goddard when I was in the residential undergraduate program.

There were drugs at Goddard in the mid-60s but also at the state university, at which I started and the graduate schools I later attended. They are present at the college I taught at for three decades. So what is new? Some students abstain, some handle it well and a few become addicts. Goddard was no different than other schools then and, I suspect, now.

I was probably one of the few students who graduated with degrees in both chemistry and biology. I went home near Cape Kennedy and found I could use my chemistry degree to work in environmental engineering, a new field at the time. I had no problem with the work and was encouraged to take graduate courses at the UF engineering branch at the Cape. The dean did not know how to evaluate the Goddard transcript so allowed me to take two graduate courses as a post-bac student. I had no problem making A's in both courses so he then admitted me into the engineering college where I pursued a master's in civil engineering with an emphasis on environmental engineering.

Goddard had prepared me well for independent thinking and problem solving in the REAL world. After a decade I decided to go back to graduate school and earn a PhD in cell biology and microbiology. I spent the next 30+ years in academia advancing through the ranks and becoming chair of my department for almost a decade before I retired. I now have a consulting business advising high school students on how to select the right college.

One thing about Goddard, it is what you make it.

I have looked at the current faculty, most of whom are at great universities and colleges and are using Goddard to earn a little extra cash. According to the students I have spoken to when I visited, these adjunct faculty are still engaged with their students and happy to have a different way to actively engage students that is, IMHO, much more effective than the "sage on the stage" model that still exists at most colleges and universities.

I started my undergraduate college career at a large university. The classes were enormous and most were taught by graduate students who cared nothing about non-majors. I suffered through a horrible mishmash of a humanities course. At Goddard we did not read snippets of great works but we read the entire work. I remember a course on the Protestant Reformation where we read 15 books in one semester covering it from many perspectives. Papers required were long and involved and rigorously evaluated, though not graded in the traditional sense. This was real education, not a few lines learned to drop at a dinner party. A Goddard education let me realize my potential and be able to converse intelligently with colleagues in diverse fields from physics to philosophy. And most importantly, Goddard helped me become a life-long learner.