The University of Maryland - College Park

Date: Mar 13 2014
Major: Economics (This Major's Salary over time)
University of Maryland is boring. Here are exactly the people you will be around, students from upper montgomery county (the w schools, sherwood, and damascus), howard county, and a few fredrick county. The other people comprise of other rural areas of Maryland, surprisingly these towns are 95+ percent european-american ancestry so you can get an idea of the open-mindedness of their viewpoints, no fault of their own. The out of state students come from, in most to least order, New Jersey, suburbs of New York, and other areas in the New England/Mid-Atlantic regions. Generally, these kids have a lot of money, so they have an entitled attitude, especially the ones from Jersey. The demographics of the school are 25% foreigner (Africans, Asians, Europeans, Indians, Middle-easterners, ect). The other 75% consists of 2% latino american, 8% black american, and 65% white american. However, if you live on campus, you will notion that this school is 90% white and 10% other. There are few first generation college students, and the students that get in are generally upper-middle class, and there are a great deal of 1%ers [household income of 394,000 and above].

To explain why I think it is boring, it comes down to the population of the students. They're simply not fun, a lot of them do not go out, and the ones that do often have their guards up. It is very group-oriented instead of community based. Meaning, you will be at a party and everyone will be in their cliques, not dancing because the females are "above" that because it is "ratchet" (white and black). Also, a lot of the students are just plain. Plain-looking, plain-acting, there is no uniqueness to this institution or the people here at all, it attracts suburbanites that are afraid of city living.

So a party at Maryland, and even our THREE bars, consists of a lot of different groups not interacting with each other. When a man hits on a girl at the bar, she automatically declines due to the stigma that all guys are "thirsty", even the athletes at the university experience consistent rejection from the ladies here.

However, this is not always the case, there are some times when a man and a woman meet at the bar and hit it off, it is rare, but it happens. Most of the time the lady will be particularly unattractive and the man will be average to above average (if not in looks, then in game). This presents a very interesting dynamic. There is something called the Maryland Complex.

It stems from the over capacity of males at this university who want to get laid so bad that they will take anything. First let me note, if there was a scale from ugly to good looking (1-10) Maryland's average would be a 3.9, I will talk about the unattractive females later in this review.

Back to the Maryland Complex. It is when a female, who did not get any play (attention) in high school because there was more competition in the female arena, comes to Maryland and realizes she is no longer the most unattractive girl and males start hitting on her regardless of whether they think she is attractive or not. Of course the man knows that this girl isn't the best looking, but in the females mind, since coming to UMD, she believes that she is ridiculously attractive now since guys give her a lot of attention. As a result the female internalizes this and her ego becomes inflated. Thus, these once 3's and 4's in high school get treated like 7's and 8's and it reflects in their attitude.

This also has an impact on the females that are actually 8's and 9's (less than 8% of the student population), they think that they are untouchable, you cannot tell them anything. Their ego sky rockets because they were just another pretty girl in high school, but now that the beauty curve leans so far towards the lower and of the spectrum, they get the pick of the litter. As a result, they walk around campus with the assumption that every guy wants to talk to them. This too reflects in their attitude, man: "excuse me miss are you going to park there?" UMD "8" with newly found confidence: "get away creepo" or "silence". So that is the Maryland Complex explained. If you are a girl, you have the upper hand at this institution in terms of getting play (attention), so maybe that is a good thing.

Now to the overall nightlife, there is a bar called Bentleys, nicked name "Whiteleys" because while every bar in college park is predominately white, this one is sure to be 99% white every night. Terrapin Turf, Cornerstone, Big Play, and Looneys are the other bars. All of these bars are not fun, Looneys is good for happy hour and the music at Big Play is good, although its always empty, but thats about it. To rate the bars on an objective scale, I have been to Madrid, Spain, and NYC and from the best bar I've been to being a 10, I will rate these accordingly:

Bentlys: 5/10 - for the european-american frat boys and girls. Music country and top 40.

Corner Stone: 6/10 - for the european-americans who do not want to go to Bentlys or are not in greek life, a sprinkle of diversity there, black male athletes, and "brown" people. Music is top 40, electronic, and pop culture hip hop such as flo rida.

Terrapin Turf: 6/10 - Music electronic, crowd differs everyday. They have tables you can rent for $200/ night.

Big Play: 6/10 - Music hip hop and sometimes top 40. Crowd was mostly black until recently. It is usually still mostly black on friday and saturday nights, college park students stay away from this bar because sometimes locals and people from surrounding communities come here, in short college park students are elitist.

Looneys: 4/10 - Unattractive population, bad live music, happy hour good.

(I was being generous with the ratings)

In terms of the education, the classes at Maryland are hard. There is not one class that you can go to, pay attention, take notes, and end up with an A-. Every class requires studying, even the 100-level courses. The professors you choose makes a big impact on your grade. They give an extreme amount of work. My syllabus for my intermediate macroeconomics course last semester was from UPENN, the ivy league. A lot of the exams are not fair. If order for you to do well at this university, you have to be on top of it all the time. 8 hours a sleep a night, 3 meals a day, study during the week, don't smoke weed, limit drinking, it is truly a lifestyle change.

I will give an example. Last semester, and this happens often in econ courses at UMD, the average on a test was 30% and it was projected to be 30% because the material is difficult, they don't teach it very well, and they plan to curve the course at the end. The problem with this is that it is very stressful to not know how you are doing in a class because the curve is going to end up being 20-some percent. ie, I received a 54% in a econ course this winter term, it turned out to be a C-.

It is a school where you will have to retake multiple courses, even if you thought you put in a lot of time for the grade. Professors do not budge on grades, there is no sucking-up, especially with majors that have many quantitative math courses, business econ stem.