(UMD/UMaryland-College Park) This university is the epitome of mediocre

How this student rated the school

Research Quality	C-	Research Availability	D-
Research Funding	C+	Graduate Politics	C-
Errand Runners	C-	Degree Completion	D+
Alternative pay [ta/gsi]	F	Sufficient Pay	F
Competitiveness	D-	Education Quality	D+
Faculty Accessibility	D-	Useful Research	C+
Extracurriculars	F	Success-Understanding	C-
Surrounding City	F	Social Life/Environment	D+
"Individual" treatment	F	Friendliness	C-
Safety	F	Campus Beauty	F
Campus Maintenance	C+	University Resource/spending	C-

Describes the student body as: Afraid, Broken Spirit Describes the faculty as: Self Absorbed

Male

Lowest Rating Alternative pay [ta/gsi]	F

Highest Rating Research Funding	C+

He cares more about Campus Beauty than the average student.

Date: Dec 31 1969
Major: Physics (This Major's Salary over time)
This university is the epitome of mediocre. How do I know? Well, because that is what one gets when he tries to be a "flagman" in every possible endeavor from sports to high-end science research. It simply does not work that way.

There is a reason why most great universities are small (certainly under 10,000 total people). That reason is that it becomes impossible to manage human organizations effectively once they reach a certain size. This university, as well as many of its individual departments, are well beyond that size. If you want to have a great football team, go ahead and do it. However, your science research will probably suffer, and vice versa. Pick your priorities and follow them. Otherwise, get smaller. But, pardon my delusional thinking, in the age of increasing addiction to "free" government funding getting smaller is simply not the option. And that does not mean just the mandatory "fix" the professors must receive in terms of their raises. Everyone wants to become a Starbucks and no one just wants to remain a cool and eclectic coffee shop with its charm and advantages. This logic works for universities the same way it does for coffee shops.

Speaking of professor's raises, their starting salaries are already 5-6 times that of a typical graduate student. Despite that, they will complain incessantly when some budgetary restriction will be attempted to come down from the "gods" of the state of Maryland. While I am on the subject, the pay for TA and RA here is about 70% that of other comparable universities. In addition, other universities do not charge their graduate students fees every semester. These amount to about $700-800 each semester. In short, the university will attempt to rape you financially at every turn. You are either an "employee" or a "student," depending on which one is better suited for them to charge you more money or pay you less in the first place.

No one here cares about anything except for the immediate thing which could possibly threaten them with reprimanding or put their salary increase under duress. I have met some good people, who, surprisingly, were secretaries. It is still beyond me how they could put up working at a place like this. Either way, they made my short time here slightly brighter.

If I could choose all over again, I would have never accepted the offer from this place.

Responses

Nobody in this place is concerned with anything other than the present issue that can subject them to reprimand or compel a wage raise. Unexpectedly, some of the nicest folks I've met were secretaries. How they could tolerate working at an environment like this still baffles me. full spectrum cbd tincture In either case, they made my brief stay here a little bit more pleasant.

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