The University of Wisconsin - Platteville

Date: Oct 30 2014
Major: Economics (This Major's Salary over time)
Since I graduated in 1984 from UW-P hopefully I can provide a long-term perspective of the place. My family had a long connection with UW-P, my father a 1960 grad, my mother was class of 1974, my brother class of 1979.

UW-P was of course smaller back in the 1980s than it is now. I never had a class that I thought was unreasonably large. I'm sure that none of the faculty that I had there are still around and like any school, some were mediocre and some were outstanding. Two of the faculty there became life-long mentors for me and I stayed in touch them them on a semi-regular basis for decades afterwards (one is now deceased and the other I still occasional correspond with).

The academic preparation I had at Platteville was excellent but, like any school, it's a factor of what you're willing to put into it. After leaving Platteville I went on to get a MBA degree at Arizona state, one of the best state university business schools in the country, and was awarded a teaching assistantship there in part due to the reputation UW-P had with the chair of the dept that gave me the job. A few years later I obtained a law degree at Gonzaga Una private Catholic university. At both schools I had classmates who'd gotten their undergrad degrees at far more famous and prestigious places than UW-P and I found that I matched up very well with all of them and that my undergrad preparation was better than most of them.

An illustrative story—a law classmate of mine had also graduated from UW-P. Before entering law school she'd already obtained a Ph.D in genetics. As I said, I already had a MBA by the time I went there. We both graduated and between us we had 7 college degrees, easily the most degrees per capita of any undergrad school represented in my law school class. If you're considering graduate school, UW-P will prepare you (my father also got a master's degree, by the way).

If there's a downside to Platteville it's the small community. I had a lot of relatives who lived there and I'd known Platteville all of my life. But until I met my future wife there, I went back home probably one weekend a month. I was also in the National Guard which took up another weekend a month. I didn't drink much and didn't participate in the Greek life so that closed off a lot of weekend activities. But while I'd never taken a single theater class, I did get cast in two theater productions there, something that would be unheard of at larger schools where the drama/theater majors would take all the roles. Those experiences with theater led to a life-time involvement and interest in community theater so that was a direct benefit of going to Platteville.

Platteville is a good place to go. It's not all things to all people but you can get a decent education that can serve you well.