The Kutztown University of Pennsylvania

Date: Oct 12 2015
Major: Computer Science (This Major's Salary over time)
KU is inexpensive.

That was by and far the selling point for me. To shorten a long story, I was forced to attend a PASSHE school for financial reasons—I waited too long in my senior year of high school to jump ship from what I had originally planned to study (Pharmacy—dodged that bullet…) and all of the good schools I had been accepted into wouldn't have offered me a satisfactory financial aid package for any other, non-high-paying degree (I/my folks didn't want me to have high debt). Plus, I didn't really know what I wanted to study. Anyway, after choosing Computer Science, I chose KU out of PASSHE because its five-year BS/MS program was financially attractive to me…

I will fervently stand by the Computer Science department; most of the faculty are great and the coursework is generally useful and insightful. I believe it to be one of the more

grown-up/no-bullshit

departments at KU. Also, the campus is nice.

That was the "selling point." Now, here's the catch: everything else sucks. I'm not going to sugar-coat it.

The general student body is comprised of unpleasant, immature, cretinous, arrogant, incapable things that belong in high school. If you're "somebody like me" (and if you are, you'll know I'm addressing you), let your ideals about the merits of public higher education take a knee before you decide to go here. If you can afford it, please go to a better school. Hell, go to West Chester. You can't make it work socially or emotionally here. At the beginning of each new semester, you'll have this sweet little feeling in your gut that you'll finally stumble upon your niche. You won't. It has taken me three years to accept that. Even in the "Honors Program"—been there, done that. It's a joke. I'm stuck here because my department is great, my field pays well, and I can't afford anything else. Don't be me. It has been a very lonely three years, and I won't be finished for a little while yet.

I swore to myself this would be more essay than novel (?), but I must do you a service to point out that the administration here is as ivory-tower-removed from the student body as could possibly be. They pay groundskeepers union salaries to make the grounds look nice only for the unsuspecting, unfortunate families that tour campus periodically. They seek that low-hanging-financial-fruit-of-freshmen, the coveted first-year government education financial-aid subsidy. What becomes of the frosh after that profitable one or two semesters—intellectually, socially or otherwise—is of no concern to the administration. This is apparent when, as a sophomore, a student no longer receives printed, snail-mail reminders for anything except "give us money" and "write thank-you's to your scholarship donors."

I could clearly go on to write a novel based on my experiences… But I think you get the picture. It's Orwellian. To justify my being here, it is inexpensive-Orwellian. But it's Orwellian nonetheless. Please take me seriously. I wish someone would've prepared me as an ambitious young frosh…